Mumbai: Mumbra techie Mudabbir Mushtaq Sheikh, who was nabbed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday, is believed to be the ringleader of a 14-member ISIS cell. He called himself deputy of the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the chief of ISIS, who proclaims to be the first of the four modern Caliphs.
The Mumbra house, where he got busted, is believed to be his den. He ventured out only to offer prayers five times a day, rest of the time he would be busy with his laptop and three mobile phones, preaching his ideas to disgruntled youth across Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
33-year-old Muddabir Shaikh, who holds a diploma in software, lost his job of a computer programmer four years ago. He remained unemployed and slowly drifted towards ISIS.
He got married to Uzma six years ago and has two daughters, of which one is a newborn. The family used to keep to themselves. Uzma told the gathered mediapersons that her husband was innocent and would never harm anyone or even think of doing anything anti-national. His in-laws are also in shock and said they are certain he wouldn’t be involved in something like this.
His father in-law said that he is a loving husband and father, who made sure he would pick up his daughter from school everyday. He was deeply religious and offered namaz five times daily. However, his relatives and friends noticed that he had become introvert over the last few months and was always on his computer. He stopped keeping touch with relatives, neighbours and friends.
On Friday at around 3 am, 15 officers from the ATS and NIA barged into Shaikh’s apartment in Amrut Nagar area of Mumbra. The family had moved from their flat at Nalasopara to Mumbra around the time Shaikh left his job four years ago.
Uzma, who has been inconsolable since the arrest, said “I could not understand what the strangers were doing in my house so late in the night. They took my husband to the kitchen, while two other officers instructed us to wait in the hall. Then they started checking his computer and took three of our mobile phones.”
Uzma further said that her husband left job because they shifted to Mumbra and he was finding it difficult to commute. “He then started working at home. He used to work for many hours on the computer. When my father would ask me what he was doing for so long on the computer, I didn’t have an answer. Many a times I tried to find out what he was doing, but he just said he was doing some IT related work.”
One of Shaikh’s neighbours said that when the family moved to Mumbra, he had a quarrel with some of the society members. “Later, however, he stopped attending meetings and his wife came instead," he said. Details of the other suspects who have been arrested are still awaited.
