Hyderabad Police was planning to take the three youth in its custody for further questioning on their attempts to join the ranks of Kashmiri Jehadis.
The trio, who was caught by the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra Police in Nagpur were brought back to the city and formally arrested by police. Senior police officials said that as this was the first case in which a group of youth had made second attempt to flee the country with the intention of taking up arms against the State, there was a need of detailed questioning to understand their mindset and the motivation of their action.
The three youth Mohammed Abdul Basit, Syed Omer Farooq Hussaini and Maaz Hasan Farooq were brought back to Hyderabad and produced before a court, which remanded them to 14 days judicial custody and lodged them in Charalapally Central Jail. A case of waging war against State and criminal conspiracy was booked.
Sources in special investigation team and the Central Crime Station who were dealing with the case said that the trio was arrested on clear instructions from the Union Home Minister which said that no leniency should be shown towards the repeat offenders. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Mahinder Reddy said that they were among the 17 Hyderabadi youth
who had tried to go abroad to join the ranks of terrorist organisation Daesh or ISIS but were caught before they left the country. “They were counseled in the presence of their families and released”.
When they tried to cross the border in to Bangladesh in September 2014 they were accompanied by two other youth Naoman and Abrar who were also taken in to custody and counseled against radicalism. Having failed in their first attempt to join ISIS, the youth again met and planned to join the ranks of the Kashmiri Jihadis by going to Srinagar.
Accordingly, the three youth stole Rs90,000 from their homes and began their journey. As they were trying to board a flight at Nagpur aircraft, the police noticed their suspicious behavior and took them in to custody. After their questioning their plans were brought to light, the Maharashtra ATS decided them to handover to Hyderabad police for further action.
Mohammed Abdul Basit and Maaz Hasan Farooq were college dropouts, while Omer Farooq Hussaini was a BSC Microbiology graduate.