Mumbai : The National Investigation Agency ( NIA) is questioning a Kalyan based cleric and searching for two more men, including a professor from Panvel, who is suspected to have escaped to Kolkata, in connection with the ISIS youth Arif Majeed’s case.
The NIA suspects that these men played a crucial role in radicalising and financing Majeed and his three friends who had fled to Iraq to join the terror group.
The NIA also wants to conduct narco analysis and lie detector tests on Majeed, as he is not clearly opening up on those who radicalised him. Majeed, who was brought back to India on Friday, is presently in the NIA’s custody.
Sources who are privy to the investigation said that the cleric, who is being questioned for the last two days, is associated with some institutions which are involved in religious preaching. He is suspected to have radicalised the four Kalyan youths.
Besides him, a Panvelbased professor is also on the radar of the NIA, which has
sent a team to Kolkata to search for him. The professor was earlier questioned by the Maharashtra ATS, as it suspected his involvement in radicalizing the Kalyan youths. Sources said that Majeed, while he was doing a diploma in engineering in Panvel, used to sometimes stay in a room owned by the professor. Majeed had a common friend who had introduced him to the professor, sources said.
Since Majeed had to travel all the way from Kalyan to Panvel, his friend spoke to the professor who allowed Majeed to stay in his room whenever he wanted.
The third person whom the NIA is trying to trace is Bhiwandi based who had provided financial help to Majeed and his friends to travel to Iraq. However, Majeed has not yet fully opened up about his local contacts. “ Though he has given the entire story about his travel and why he chose to return, he is not opening up about the local connections, which radicalized him,” an officer involved in the investigation said.
He added that the Kalyan cleric and the Panvel professor were already under the ATS scanner while Majeed’s statement gave a clue to the third Bhiwandi- based person. “ But there is a larger group involved in this, which only he or his friends, if they return, would be able to connect with the entire operation to radicalise youths,” the official said.
Kalyan- based Majeed and his three friends, Fahad Sheikh, Aman Naeem Tandel and Saheem Tanki, had gone missing this year in May. They had gone along with 22 other people on a pilgrimage to Iraq without informing their families on May 25. The Mumbai ATS subsequently learnt that they had deserted the group of pilgrims and taken a taxi from Baghdad to a place called Fallujah, located on the Syrian border.
Meanwhile, while Majeed’s family is being kept somewhere close to him at an undisclosed location, the families of two of the other boys, Fahad Sheikh and Aman Tandel, have decided to approach the NIA and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week for bringing their sons home.
Sheikh’s uncle and Tandel’s family friend, Iftekhar Khan, who spoke on the two boys’ parents’ behalf, confirmed this development. Saheem Tanki’s family members, on the other hand, have refused to speak.
MUMBAI: The IS recruit from Mumbai is singing like a canary, only the sleuths are finding it difficult to sift truth from fiction. They are not sure how much of what he is ‘ revealing’ is scripted by the IS spin doctors to mislead Indian agencies. Also, how much of it is propaganda? According to a TV channel, for instance, Majeed has told investigators that the IS now has a ‘ look east’ policy, as a part of which it has ” special plans” for India. Also, that the ” new world order” under the IS was something ” everyone should fight for.” Sources told the FPJ that these statements could also be part of an elaborate plot to spread the IS doctrine.
MANISH PACHOULY & SINDHU J MANSUKHANI
