Twenty-three-old Arif Majeed, one of the four youngsters from neighbouring Kalyan who had gone to Iraq and reportedly joined terror outfit ISIS, is being questioned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on his return to Mumbai in the early hours of Friday.
Sources in the Mumbai police said that Arif – who was brought to Mumbai from Turkey to where he had escaped from Iraq — was being subjected to prolonged questioning by the central investigating agency for his alleged links with the ISIS and on the identity of those who recruited him and three other youngsters from Kalyan.
Though Arif is currently under the NIA’s detention, it is not certain as yet as to whether he will be placed under arrest in the coming days. Given that Arif has come back to India of his own free will, there is also no clarity as to the grounds under which he can be placed under arrest.
Sources, meanwhile, said that the NIA was trying to extract as much of information as possible as to the presence of ISIS sympathisers or recruits based in India and the nature of terror outfit’s invasion into the country.
Arif, a third year civil engineering student, is son of a Kalyan-based doctor. His family lives in Kalyan, a satellite town of Mumbai located in neighbouring Thane district.
In May this year, Arif and three others — Fahad Tanvir Sheikh, Aman Naim Tandel and Shahim Farooqi Tanki — all young men in their twenties — disappeared from Kalyan. later, news reports emerged indicating that all four of them had joined ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sirya, a Sunni extremist and jehadi group.
The ISIS or ISIl has presence in Iraq, Sirya, eastern libya and Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. The four youngsters from Kalyan, including Arif, reportedly joined ISIS in Iraq.
“We are very happy that Arif has returned. We were all concerned about the safety of the four boys. We are told Arif is with the NIA and he would join us soon,” Arif Majeed’s uncle Iftikar Khan told media persons here in the afternoon.
Khan said that Arif’s father had received a telephone call from the investigating agency that his son had arrived in Mumbai.
Maharashtra ATS, which had earlier questioned the family members of the four youths, is in touch with the NIA.
The families of four youths live in the same Dudhnaka-Govindwadi locality of Kalyan (west). Though the family members of four youngsters had lodged complaints about their disappearance on May 25, 26 and 27, it was only on June 14, 2014 that the Kalyan police confirmed that they registered missing cases and that the matter was under investigation.
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