Youth tried to meet Kashmiri leader

During the interrogation, the arrested trio confessed that they were trying to go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine via Kashmir to join jihadi forces of ISIS

Hyderabad: The three city-based cousins, arrested for allegedly planning to join jihadi terror groups, aspired to meet the Kashmiri separatist leader Asiya Andrabi using the name of their late uncle, former chief of Students Islamic Movement of India Syed Salahuddin, the police said on Tuesday.

Andrabi is a leader of the separatist Kashmiri women’s group Dukhtaran-e-Millat. “Mohd Abdulla Basith, Maaz Hasan Farooq and Syed Omer Farooq Hussaini had no direct connection with Andrabi, nor did she know them. After reaching Srinagar, they wanted to meet her using their uncle’s name and seek her help to cross the border and reach Jalalabad in Afghanistan,” a senior officer of the special investigation team of the city police said.

“From Srinagar, they wanted to explore options for joining some terror organisation to wage jihad. They did not have any well-prepared plan and wanted to meet Andrabi or leaders of Hizbul Mujahideen,” he told a news agency.

The trio, all students (aged around 20-22), were picked up from Nagpur airport last week and arrested by Hyderabad police on December 27. The SIT on Tuesday moved the local court seeking their custody for another ten days.

During the interrogation, they confessed to hold jihadi ideology and said they were trying to go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine via Kashmir to join jihadi forces of ISIS/ISIL to wage war against the State (India or elsewhere), according to the officer.

“In the past few weeks, the accused read a great deal of ISIS propaganda online, besides watching a documentary on Kashmir on YouTube, and also read a newspaper article on the rise of militancy in Kashmir,” the officer said. The three have been booked under IPC Section 121 (waging war against the government) and relevant Sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

According to the FIR, Abdullah Basith confessed that Maaz and Syed Omer regularly held meetings at their family functions and other parties and had entered into criminal conspiracy. “They took the role model of their maternal uncle late Syed Salahuddin. Abdullah Basith indoctrinated Maaz and Farooq for furtherance of unlawful activities and to join hands with Jihadi forces of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS / ISIL) and to wage war against the States,” it said.

As a part of their criminal conspiracy they met several times in the house of Maaz at Humayun Nagar here and on December 24 they met in their family function in Nalgonda town and decided to leave their houses without any intimation to their parents, it said. As part of their criminal conspiracy, on the intervening night of December 24 and 25, Abdullah Basith stealthily took Rs 90,000 from his house and all the three met at Mehdipatnam Crossroads and travelled on two bikes and reached Adilabad district.

According to it, he further confessed that, because of cold wave they were unable to proceed further and as such kept the motor bikes at a private mechanic shed in Adilabad on the pretext of repair and servicing. They engaged a taxi for Rs 3,500 and reached Nagpur in the afternoon of December 25.

“Then they purchased air tickets from a tours and travels in Nagpur to go to Srinagar so that, from there they could illegally intrude into Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine with the help of terrorists. They loitered in and around Nagpur, watched two movies and finally reached the airport in the early hours of December 26,” it added.

Before leaving Hyderabad, Abdullah wrote a letter to his parents about his plan and left it in the house. He also confessed that he downloaded Jihadi materials through internet in his tab and the same was deleted by him due to fear of law enforcing agencies and left the tab at his house, the FIR said.

Earlier, in September 2014, Abdullah Basith and Maaz Hasan Farooq made an attempt to go to Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Palestine via Bangladesh, along with two others Abrar and Noman. However, police foiled their attempt in Kolkata and brought them back to Hyderabad, and counselled them in the presence of their parents and let them off.