Mumbai court allows NIA to seek details of Skype account of ISIS recruit Arif Majeed

Mumbai: A local court on Friday allowed National Investigation Agency to seek details of the conversations and chats carried out by the alleged ISIS 'recruit' Arif Majeed through the telecommunication apps Skype and Tango.

"We want the details of the communication made by Arif in the past six months and the court has given us permission to write to these application companies," said an NIA officer.

Skype is headquartered in Luxembourg while Tango is based in California, USA. "The information about his accounts will help us know about the persons with whom he was in touch before leaving for Iraq and during his stay there," said an NIA source.

The 23-year-old youth from the neighbouring Thane landed in Mumbai on November 28 after a visit to Iraq, following which he was detained and subsequently arrested.

A case under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Section 125 of IPC which deals with offence of 'waging war against any Asiatic country which has friendly ties with India' has been registered against ISIS, Arif and three of his friends, all engineering students.

According to police, Arif and his friends flew to Baghdad on May 23 as part of a group of 22 pilgrims to visit religious shrines in Iraq. Upon returning to India, other pilgrims told police that Arif, Fahad, Aman and Shaheen Tanki had left for Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad.

In August, Tanki called up Arif's family and told them that their son had become a 'martyr' while fighing for ISIS. However, later Arif's father Ejaz Majeed reportedly told NIA that his son had fled from ISIS-controlled areas to Turkey after fighting for the militant group for nearly three months and he now wanted to return to India. Arif is now in judicial custody while the other three are still missing.