In yet instance of the youth falling prey to the ISIS propaganda, Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and the Telangana Police on Saturday detained three Hyderabad-based students from Nagpur airport while they were on their way to Srinagar to join either local “jehadi” groups or ISIS.
Acting on inputs received from the Counter-Intelligence Cell of Telangana Police, ATS officials detained Mohammed Abdullah Wasim (22), Syed Umar Farooq Hussaini (21) and Mazhussain Farooqui (22), when they were about to board a flight to Srinagar.
The trio had purchased tickets for Srinagar from the counter of a private airline.
Informed ATS sources said that in order not to avoid interception at the high-security airport, the three students — said to be cousins — travelled by road to Nagpur.
“The three youngsters have been detained in a joint operation by the Maharashtra ATS and Telangana police,” a senior officer said.
Given their immediate destination was Srinagar; there was confusion in the State ATS circles whether the three students were planning to join ISIS or the Srinagar-based “jehadi groups”.
Unconfirmed reports said that after a brief stay in Srinagar, the three students were planning to head to Syria to join ISIS. “The three arrested youngsters are being brought back to Hyderabad. It is only after we question them that we will be able to ascertain as to whether they were planning to join as ISIS or the local jehadi groups,” a Hyderabad-based intelligence official said.
Significantly enough, the three youths had been detained by the Hyderabad police last years. They were counselled and let off by the police. However, they had been kept under watch by the Telangana police. Going by their latest plans, the police do not rule out the possibility of their having been radicalised once again.
The search for Mohammed, Syed and Mazhussain had begun after the parents of the first two lodged a complaint with Hyderabad’s Chandrayaangutta Police Station on Friday night while Mazhassan’s parents registered a complaint at langer House Police Station.
The investigations have revealed that no case of crime has far been registered against any of the three youths. “There is no case pending against any of the three detained youngsters. We are trying to find out their plans from them,” a senior police in Hyderabad said.
Saturday’s development came less than a fortnight after the Maharashtra ATS detained a Pune-based 16-year-old girl who was planning to join ISIS and put her on a de-radicalisation programme and in the midst of the continued disappearance of two youths from Malwani locality of Malad suburb in north Mumbai.
Of the four Muslim youths who had disappeared from their homes at Malwani in north Mumbai in recent weeks and were “suspected” to have joined the ISIS - two have returned home. The ATS is looking out for two other “missing” youths.
The Malwani case is third instance of its kind in Maharashtra where youngsters have been drawn to the ISIS. Earlier in May last year, four youngsters - Areeb Fayyaz Majeed, Fahad Tanvir Sheikh, Aman Naim Tandel and Shaheen Farooqi Tanki - who were also engineering students had disappeared from Kalyan in May 2014. later, news reports emerged indicating that all four of them had joined ISIS.
Of the four youngsters, Areeb returned to India. Immediately after his return, Areeb was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). On May 20 this year, the NIA filed a 8,000-page comprehensive charge sheet against ISIS ‘recruit’ Areeb in a special court here. In the charge-sheet, the NIA named three of his friends were named as “absconding” accused in the case.
In the second instance, the Maharashtra ATS -a fortnight ago-- detained and grilled intensely a 16-year-old girl from a good family after it came know that she made up her mind to join the ISIS. After grilling her, the ATS has put her under a de-radicalisation programme, with the help of her family members and community leaders.