The apartment of alleged ISIS suspect Fiaz Masood, at Cooke Town in Bengaluru (Photo: R. Samuel)
Bengaluru: Intel reports about two men from Bengaluru dying in Syria after joining ISIS have come as a severe jolt and reveal the fast spreading tentacles of the dreaded organisation. Although the IT City’s link with ISIS came out in the open in December last year, when Mehdi Masroor Biswas was arrested, he had run a Twitter handle and did not take part in their battles. The city police are now scrambling for clues about the two ISIS recruits.
The two men from Bengaluru, who are believed to have joined ISIS and killed in war-torn Syria-Iraq region, had not left any clues with their family members. The two men had neither informed their family about their whereabouts nor of their decision of joining the terror outfit, said sources from the police adding the family members came to terms with the their sons’ fate only after they were visited by multiple officials from intelligence agencies at their respective homes and other family members to retrieve information about the dead radicalised men. The two men were killed in separate incidents, but intelligence agencies have not released a time frame of their deaths.
Same are the cases with Mohammed Umar Subhan, son of Mohammed Abdul Subhan, an architect in Shivajinagar who suddenly disappeared from the city, and Faiz Masood, 28-year-old son of Masood Ali, a resident of Cooke Town in D’Costa Layout who was a Business Management student who according to his family was last known to have gone to Qatar in September 2013 on business and then went incommunicado, said the police.
The names and personal details including addresses of the six Indians who reportedly died in the war-torn Syria-Iraq region were leaked to media recently from intelligence reports. The report claimed there were 23 persons who had reportedly joined ISIS from India and the names and personal details of whom are alive have been kept under wraps. The details were gathered by a central intelligence agency using various sister agencies in collaboration with the foreign intelligence recently.
City’s link with ISIS not new
The city’s links with ISIS was not established until Mehdi Masroor Biswas was arrested in December last year from his house in Jalahalli. He was tracked down by the central agencies and the officials of the Internal Security Division after it was found that he was allegedly handling the pro-ISIS Twitter account @shamiwitness.
The citizens, who never imagined that ISIS would spread its network till Bengaluru, were shocked to know this. Now that the two youth from Bengaluru, who were killed fighting for ISIS, has revealed that the ISIS had spread its network in the city much before 2014, as the two had gone to Syria in 2013 itself.
Mehdi Masroor Biswas
Mehdi, who hailed from West Bengal, was working as manufacturing executive in a company here. In fact, he was accused of posting messages on Twitter and encouraging youth to join ISIS. He was particularly close to English speaking terrorists of ISIS in UK and became a source of incitement and information for new recruits trying to join ISIS/ISIL. Through his social media propaganda, he abetted ISIL in its agenda to wage war against the Asiatic powers. He was careful in hiding his true identity and was confident that it will never get revealed. His identity was exposed by Channel 4 and inputs were passed on to Indian agencies.
The recent developments suggest that much before Mehdi became active on the micro-blogging site, a few from the state had already joined ISIS in Syria.
DC visits the houses in Bengaluru of the two alleged ISIS men whose names have appeared in the list of dead
Faiz Masood, the name of ISIS member from the city which has been splashed all over the media, has left the family distraught. The palatial building – Wood House is under the vigilance of a security guard who has locked the gates and refuses to let anyone enter the house of 28-year-old Faiz.
Soon after the news broke out on Faiz’s death, family members locked themselves in their sprawling house and stopped responding to phone calls or meeting in person. This newspaper even tried contact a few relatives and neighbours, but to no avail.
According to the police sources, around six to seven intelligence agencies have visited the family members at their residence in D’Costa Layout in Cooke Town over the period of last one year and the family has alleged that the officials harassed them over this issue despite them contending that they knew nothing about Faiz. The last time Faiz contacted his parents was in September 2013 when he was in Qatar on a business trip, said an officer quoting his father, Masood Ali.
One of the three sons of Masood Ali, who ran an upscale furniture business on St. Mark’s Road, Faiz Masood was married to Seema and father to a five-year-old son and a one and half year-old daughter. Faiz had left for Qatar when his wife was pregnant with his daughter, added sources. The family moved from Jayamahal Extension to Cooke Town in June 2013.
According to the police sources, it is not known when and how Faiz got influenced into joining ISIS. He was a business management student from Christ University and had completed his pre-university (PU) and schooling from Vidya Niketan, and St Anthony Boys’ School and St Joseph’s Boys’ High School respectively.
ISIS recruit Umar’s father untraceable
ISIS recruit Umar Subhan’s father, Mohammed Abdul Subhan, seems to have vanished. Umar died over two years ago after joining the most dreaded terror organisation in the world. Deccan Chronicle visited a building on Hospital Road in Shivajinagar, where Mohd Abdul Subhan, an architect, had taken office space on rent in 2010 for seven months. He had quarreled with the owner and reportedly filed an FIR. The Commercial Street police said, “Three months ago, Internal Security Division officials visited this building. Even ISD officials could not get any more information on him.”
Building owner Deepak Kumar is an unhappy man. He says that the father of Mohammed Umar Subhan, who is believed to have joined ISIS and was killed in Syria, Mohammed Abdul Subhan had taken a 600 square feet space on rent on the second floor of their property situated on Hospital Road near Imperial Hotel in Shivajinagar and not paid rent.
The building where Mohammed Abdul Subhan, father of second ISIS suspect Mohammed Umar Subhan had an office space (Photo: DC)
“Mohammed Abdul Subhan had not paid rent to us for last 10 years. He began creating problems for paying the rent and refused to adhere to the contract. A sum amount of '300 was decided per month to be paid by him. But, he paid few month’s rent and that too a meager amount of Rs 75. Despite warning him numerous times, Mr. Subhan did not pay any heed and rather lodged a harassment complaint against us in Commercial Street Police Station around four years ago.”
He further charged that after the complaint, the family filed a counter complaint as Mohammed Abdul Subhan reportedly used to pass comments at their sister who looks after a plywood shop in the same building at the ground floor. After the police came for questioning, there was no trace of Mohammed Abdul Subhan. We have not seen him since last four years.”
“We had let him stay here because he knew my father who had rented the space to him around 14 years ago. I was a child when Mr. Abdul Subhan had come to our building. I don’t remember seeing his family or son,” added Mr Kumar.
However when DC contacted Commercial Street Police, they said that there was no complaint registered. “If at all there was a complaint in connection with property dispute it had gone to court straight away as it is a civil dispute case,” said M. Ramesh, police inspector at Commercial Street.
According to the police, during investigation it came to light that the building had two owners. Earlier, the owner Shankar Lal and Bhanwar Lal used to look after the property business and reportedly knew about the ISIS suspect Mohammad Umar Subhan. But around two and a half years ago after the death of Shankar Lal, the business was taken over by Shanti Lal and Deepak. It was also learnt that Mohammed Abdul Subhan, who was an architect had hardly any clients visiting him in office. He was said to be living alone and even the building owners had no information about his wife and son.
According to sources, the police is in a tizzy after one of the owners, Shanti Lal, reportedly told the police that he remembers seeing Mohammad Umar Subhan in the office of his father. But he is not sure.
Meanwhile, DCP East, N Sathish said, "The local police are unaware about any such news. We also learnt about it on Tuesday through media and had not received any official statement regarding the same."
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