Youth who joined IS in Iraq returns

A youth from Kalyan who had joined the Islamic State (IS) terror group and was presumed killed while fighting in Iraq returned to Mumbai on Friday morning.

Arif Majeed arrived from Turkey and was arrested hours later, according to a PTI report. Sources said a team of officers of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and intelligence sleuths are questioning him. He will be produced before a designated NIA court on Sunday.

A notification was issued by the Home Ministry late on Friday directing NIA to register the case under section 125 of the IPC which deals with waging war against friendly countries.

Majeed, a 23-year-old engineering student, is the son of a Kalyan-based doctor.
Majeed appeared “highly radicalised”, the police said.

Majeed, along with Fahad Tanvir Sheikh, Aman Naim Tandel and Shahim Farooqi Tanki, all in their 20s and residents of Kalyan in Thane district, disappeared a few months ago. Later it was reported that all of them had joined IS.

The IS has presence in Iraq, Syria, eastern Libya and Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. The youths were said to have joined IS in Iraq. “One of them returned on Friday and he is being questioned,” intelligence sources said.

Meanwhile, the family of Majeed has welcomed the return of the youth. “We are very happy that he has returned… we are all concerned for the four boys. We are told he is with the NIA and he would join us soon,” Majeed’s uncle Iftikar Khan told reporters.

The four families live in the same Dudhnaka-Govindwadi area of Kalyan West and their disappearance came to light on June 14 when the police confirmed that four cases of missing complaints were registered on May 25, 26 and 27. They had allegedly left on May 23 as part of a group of 22 pilgrims intending to visit religious shrines in West Asia.

Officials of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra Police had in the past recorded the statement of the four families besides some clerics in Thane district.
On August 26, Farooqi Tanki called up Majeed’s family and told them that their son died fighting for IS in Syria and became a martyr. 

A few days ago, Majeed’s father Ejaz Majeed reportedly met the NIA and told them his son had gone to Turkey after fighting for the militant group for nearly three months and wants to return to India.