NEW DELHI, Mar 24: An IIT-Guwahati student was held at Hajo in Assam after he allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS. The fourth-year Biotechnology student recently claimed on a social media platform and emails that he intended to join the terror outfit and went missing from the IIT-Guwahati campus.
He has been charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). He was taken to a Guwahati court on Sunday which sent him to 10-day police custody.
This comes close on the heels of the arrest of the ISIS India head Haris Farooqi in Dhubri district after he allegedly crossed over from Bangladesh. According to police sources, a lookout alert was issued for the student, who is a resident of Delhi, after he wrote an open letter on LinkedIn stating the reason for his decision. He was found in Hajo, around 30 km from Guwahati, in Kamrup district and detained for interrogation.
When police contacted the IIT-Guwahati authorities, they informed that said student had been “missing’ since noon and his mobile phone was also switched off.
“Reference IIT Guwahati student pleading allegiance to ISIS – the said student has been detained while travelling and further lawful follow up would take place,” Director-General of Police GP Singh posted on X.
Additional Superintendent of Police (STF) Kalyan Kumar Pathak said, “After receiving an email, we verified the authenticity of the contents and started an investigation.” The email was sent by the student, in which he claimed that he was on the way to join ISIS.
Special Task Force sources said he was taken to his hostel room where cops recovered a black flag similar to the ISIS flag and an Islamic manuscript. He was a loner and didn’t have friends on the campus, police said.
Haris Farooqi, who has been active since 2019, was arrested along with his associates on Wednesday by the Assam police. His associate Anurag Singh alias Rehan belongs to Panipat and converted to Islam. His wife is a Bangladeshi national. Farooqi was suspected to be hiding in Bangladesh and carrying out radicalisation of Indians, sources said.
He has been instrumental in setting up modules in Jharkhand, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Farooqi, who is from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, was wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
(Manas Dasgupta)
