Hyderabad engineer eyeing ISIS training in Syria grilled by police

Police, who announced the arrest of 32-year-old Salman Mohiuddin Friday night, are questioning him to gather more information, including identification of the youth he was in touch with in India.

The US-returned techie was arrested at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here late Thursday when he was leaving for Dubai.

Police said that ever since returning from the US in October last year, he used social media to try and attract local youth across India with an intention to take them to Syria and Iraq.

"He intended to undergo training in Syria, and after returning wanted to indulge in anti-national activities in the country," police said.

Mohiuddin, who had gone to the US four years ago, came in contact with a British woman living in Dubai.

Identified as Nicky Joseph alias Nicky alias Nicole alias Ayesha, she converted to Islam and had a "fundamentalist leaning", police said.

"In 2014, after the establishment of the caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Salman and Nicky started taking interest in development activities of the Islamic State. They created various Facebook groups under pseudo names and started attracting people who were interested in IS."

As the US did not extend his visa, he returned to India and continued his activities.

The counter-intelligence of Telangana was tracking the techie through his online activities.

He allegedly used social media to attract youth from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bihar and other states towards the IS. Police are now trying to identify the youth who were in touch with him through Facebook.

The counter-intelligence alerted police when Mohiuddin was preparing to leave for Dubai.

Police said he planned to leave for Syria from Dubai via Turkey.

Police arrested Mohiuddin under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Information Technology Act. Various electronic gadgets were also recovered from him.

Police sources said that as he spent four years in the US, the information gathered from him about his activities during his stay abroad will be shared with the Interpol.

A resident of Bazarghat area of Hyderabad, Mohiuddin left for the US after graduation in engineering. He earned a master's degree in electronics from Texas Southern University and was doing odd jobs when he got indoctrinated in IS ideology on social media.

Mohiuddin's family has termed the charges against him baseless. His father Ahmed Mohiuddin, a retired civil engineer, said he was implicated in a false case.

Ahmed said his son was going to Dubai for a job.

PTI