Alleged ISIS Recruit’s Family Says Maharashtra ATS is Framing Him

Mohsin is suspected to be an ISIS sympathiser. He was held at Kashmere Gate at Inter-State Bus Terminal by the ATS.

A suspected ISIS operative has been arrested. Image used for representation. (Photo: iStockphoto)

Kasoor ho na ho, gunhegaar to usse bana hi diya! (Whether he’s done something wrong or not, he has already been declared guilty.)

26-year-old Mohsin Sayyed left his home in Malvani, a Mumbai suburb, on 15 December 2015. To attend a friend’s wedding he had said, promising to be back in two days. Fifty days later, his family –– his parents, wife and two children –– were struggling to locate him. But when Mohsin was finally found last Friday, the news brought no relief.

Mohsin was picked-up at the Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT) in the national capital by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell.

He was arrested on charges of being an ISIS sympathiser, that he was in touch with key ISIS handlers in Syria and had provided money to Indian recruits.

But Mohsin’s family denies all allegations. Speaking to The Quint, Mohsin’s father, Ibrahim said:

My son is religious. He offers <i>namaz</i> five times a day, wouldn’t miss one day of fasting during Ramadan. He is very attached to all of us, especially his two-year-old daughter.

Mohsin’s father, Ibrahim at their residence in Malwani, north Mumbai. (Photo: Puja Changoiwala)

I can’t believe he left his children behind to join a terror group. ATS says he was to go to Syria; but he does not have a passport. They say he got radicalised over the internet; but we do not have a computer or internet.

Ibrahim, who sells dress materials in nearby slums, says Mohsin had said he was attending a friend’s wedding in Gujarat. But then his phone went silent. The family even registered a missing person’s complaint with the Malwani police.

Mohsin, the Anti-Terror Squad has said, was one of the four youths from Malwani who had fled home to join the ISIS.

“The day he left, he was normal. He spoke normally, behaved normally. You couldn’t tell that he was planning to never return,” said Mohsin’s wife.

Our daughter Huda has cried herself sick with fever and cold. She keeps asking, <i>‘Abbu kahaan hai.?’ </i>All this while, I had wished I could tell her where he was. But now that I know, I feel the uncertainty was easier to live with. Now, I know where he is, but don’t know if he’ll ever come back.”

Mohsin’s family, on Friday morning, handed a letter to the Mumbai police commissioner stating that they were worried for their son, expressing anxiety that he could be framed in a false case by the Maharashtra ATS. They underlined that Mohsin was just an auto rickshaw driver and educated only upto class 8.

The letter submitted by Mohsin’s family to the Mumbai police commissioner on Friday, hours before his arrest. (Photo: Puja Changoiwala)

“He is being framed,” said Zubeida, Mohsin’s grandmother, speaking for the first time during the conversation.

My <i>bachcha </i>is innocent. He left with his friends for a wedding. When we went to the police after he did not return, they said that all of them had gone to join terrorists. But two of the boys returned soon after.

Mohsin’s grandmother, Zubeida at the family’s home in Malwani. (Photo: Puja Changoiwala)

If those two boys have been declared innocent, why are they calling my son a terrorist? Why are they spoiling all our lives? His wife, his kids, his parents, his siblings, all of us haven’t slept since he left. Each day is hard to endure.

In Mohsin’s absence his father says, the family has struggled to make ends meet. Mohsin earned Rs 500 a day ferrying passengers in his auto rickshaw, and took care of most domestic expenses. But now that he isn’t around, his diabetic father has had to start working again to support the family. Further, as news of Mohsin’s alleged links to ISIS spread, the family has had to deal with the infamy it has earned them.

“After he left, we tried calling him every day. We asked everyone we knew if he had got in touch. But we couldn’t find him. And he didn’t call us either. I don’t know what was holding him back, but I know my son is not a criminal. He may have been brainwashed, but he is not a criminal,” Ibrahim added, taking leave to offer evening prayers at a nearby mosque.