Nearly six months after it arrested 23-year-old youngster from Kalyan for his alleged links with the Islamic State of Iraq and Sirya (ISIS), the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday filed a comprehensive chargesheet against ISIS ‘recruit’ Arif in a special court here.
Confirming the filing of a charge-sheet against Arif Majeed in the special court, sources in the NIA said that 8,000-page chargesheet comprised seven volumes — incorporating the statements of witnesses, his conversation in the chat rooms and his mobile phone records.
In its chargesheet, the NIA has provided details of conversations and chats carried out by the alleged ISIS ‘recruit’ with those involved with the terror outfit through Skype and Tango.
A local court had in January this year allowed the NIA to obtain details of the conversations and chats from the two telecommunication apps Skype and Tango headquartered in luxembourg and California, USA respectively.
Arif —who and three other ISIS-linked youngsters from Kalyan have been booked under sections of Unlawful Assembly Prevention Act (UAPA) and section 125 of IPC which deals with waging war against any Asiatic country which has friendly ties with India – had been taken into custody by the NIA after his return to Kalyan from abroad on November 28 last year.
The NIA had then shown three other youngsters Fahad Tanvir Sheikh, Aman Naim Tandel and Shahim Farooqi Tanki, with whom Arif had gone to Iraq in May this year and reportedly joined the ISIS, as the “wanted” accused in the case.
Arif – who had arrived in Mumbai from Turkey to where he had escaped from Iraq – was detained by the NIA for custodial interrogation soon after his arrival in the city.
Arif, a third year civil engineering student, and three other friends Fahad, Tandel and Tanki - who were also engineering students -- had disappeared from Kalyan in May this year. later, news reports emerged indicating that all four of them had joined ISIS.
The families of four youngsters, who live in the same Dudhnaka-Govindwadi locality of Kalyan (west), had lodged complaints about their disappearance on May 25, 26 and 27. However, it was only on June 14, 2014 that the Kalyan police confirmed that they had registered missing cases and that the matter was under investigation.
The four youngsters had reportedly left Mumbai on May 23 as part of a group of 22 pilgrims intending to visit religious shrines in Middle East.
On August 26, Tanki had called up Arif's family members and told them that their son had had died fighting for ISIS in Syria and became a martyr. After hearing the shocking “information” from Tanki, special prayers - Janaza-e-Gayabana, prayers for the departed soul in absence of the body – was performed in a local mosque.
However, Arif's father Ejaz Majeed reportedly met the NIA officials subsequently and told them his son had escaped to Turkey after fighting for the militant group for more than three months and wanted to return to India.