Colombo, April 28: The Indian Intelligence has found that Muhammad Mubarak Azan, one of the suspected suicide bombers in the terror attack in Sri Lanka, visited India twice in 2017. A top Intel official, while speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Azan, along with Zahran Hashim, another alleged suicide bomber, travelled to India ahead of the attacks.

Azan is accused of himself detonating an explosive in one of the six churches where the blast was reported, whereas, Hashim is suspected to exploding himself at the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo. Sri Lanka: ISIS Claims 3 Militants Who Blew Up Themselves Killing 15 Were Affiliated to Daesh

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had last week said that Indian authorities shared "actionable" intelligence with Sri Lanka before the serial blasts rocked the neighbouring country.

Nearly 360 people were killed in the Easter Sunday bombings in the island nation.

"Desired and actionable inputs were shared with the authorities in Sri Lanka prior to the blasts. But unfortunately, they (plotters) succeeded," Singh told.

Asked if Sri Lanka failed to act on those inputs, the Home Minister had said it is not a question of blaming that country's government for it.

Nine suicide bombers, believed to be members of local Islamist extremist group named National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), carried out the series of blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels. However, the NTJ has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.

According to officials, Intelligence inputs about a possible terror attack in Sri Lanka, targeting the Indian High Commission, were shared by Indian agencies with their counterparts in the island nation earlier this month after the National Investigation Agency completed its probe into an ISIS-inspired module planning to kill prominent leaders in south India.

The inputs were sent through diplomatic channels to Sri Lanka after a thorough investigation pertaining to the ISIS case in Coimbatore was carried out by the NIA, which has filed a charge sheet against seven people.

During investigation, the probe team had stumbled upon videos of NTJ leader Zahran Hashim, which was indicative of a terror attack on the Indian High Commission in Colombo.

After further investigation which included cyber trailing of some of the accounts associated with the ISIS, the central security agencies shared an input with their Lankan counterparts about the churches being the likely target of the ISIS module, the officials said.

(With PTI inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 28, 2019 01:29 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).