ISIS suspect held at Delhi airport, cops say he was trying to go to Syria

A man from Kerala’s Kannur with alleged ISIS links, who was deported by the Turkish police for holding a fake passport, was arrested at the Delhi airport on Wednesday, police said.

The Delhi Police’s anti-terror unit is probing his links with the terror group.

“A case of cheating, forgery, impersonation and under sections of the passport act has been registered against him. We are probing his links with ISIS. We will interrogate him to probe how he got a forged passport,” a senior police officer said.

Intelligence officials told the police that he planned to enter Syria and was in touch with many others who have already sneaked into the country and joined ISIS.

DCP (Special Cell) Pramod Kushwaha said the man was on their radar as he was trying to go to Syria to join ISIS.

“While we were tracking the man, we found he was in Turkey with his family and was deported to India in February. This was his second attempt to go to Syria. He is radicalised and was determined to go to Syria to join ISIS,” Kushwaha said.

“We knew he was travelling with fake documents and name, so we arrested him the moment he landed at Indira Gandhi International airport,” he said.

The police have also seized his mobile phone to check all his chats and emails to find out who he was in touch with.

Kushwaha also confirmed the arrest of another man who facilitated his visit by arranging all the fake documents, including the passport.

In April, the government told the Rajya Sabha around 80 people suspected to have been influenced by the ISIS ideology have been held in the country but no input suggests that the radical organisation has established a base in India.

Last year, 21 people from Kerala allegedly joined ISIS in Afghanistan.

The disappearance of the group, which included six women and three children, sent shockwaves across the country.

Most of these people were educated and came from upper middle-class families.

Some of them later called up their relatives and told them they had joined the terror group. He even worked in Saudi Arabia from 2009-13.