The three Hyderabad-based cousins, arrested for allegedly planning to join terror groups, aspired to meet Kashmiri separatist leader Asiya Andrabi. They were planning to use the name of their late uncle and former chief of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) Syed Salahuddin, 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.
Senior Officer from Probe Team
The officer also 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 (sic),” he told PTI.
All three students (aged around 20-22), were picked up from Nagpur airport last week and arrested by Hyderabad police on December 27. The Special Investigation Team on Tuesday moved the local court seeking their custody for another ten days.
During the interrogation they confessed to hold extremist ideology and said they were trying to go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine via Kashmir to join ISIS 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.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)