IIT Guwahati student held for pledging allegiance to ISIS in social media posts

Update: 2024-03-24 07:51 GMT
IIT Guwahati
Guwahati: After apprehending the ISIS India head, the Assam police here on Sunday said that they have arrested an IIT-Guwahati student who allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Informing that Tauseef Ali Farooqui a fourth-year Biotechnology student of IIT Guwahati was arrested from Hajo area, security sources said that he 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.

Additional Superintendent of Police (STF) Kalyan Kumar Pathak told reporters, "After receiving an email, we verified the authenticity of the contents and started an investigation."

He said that the IIT-Guwahati authorities were immediately contacted, who informed them that the said student had been “missing” since noon and his mobile phone was also switched off. He is a fourth-year student and hailed from Okhla in Delhi, he added.

Accordingly, a lookout alert was issued for the student. He was found in Hajo, around 30 km from Guwahati, in Kamrup district and detained. An email was also sent by the student, in which he claimed that he was on the way to join ISIS.

Pointing out that police picked him up from the Hajo area, the security sources said that 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.

This has come close on the heels of the arrest of the ISIS India head Haris Farooqi in Dhubri district after he allegedly crossed over from Bangladesh.

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 belonged to Panipat and converted to Islam. His wife is a Bangladeshi national. Farooqi was hiding in Bangladesh and carrying out radicalisation of Indians.

He has been instrumental in setting up modules in Jharkhand, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Farooqui, who is from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, was wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Meanwhile, Assam police has moved the court for custody of the IIT student.


Tags:    

Similar News