Fourth Mumbai youth who fled home to join IS killed, says family
MUMBAI: Fahad Shaikh, a 24-yearold Kalyan resident who fled from home with three of his friends to join the Islamic State in 2014, has been reported killed.
Fahad’s father Tanveer Shaikh told HT on Wednesday that a phone call from an unknown number alerted him to his death on Tuesday afternoon.
“Your son is no more,” the caller told him in English, before switching to Hindi. He then went on to say that Fahad had been killed in Syria, and the last rites would be performed soon. “Unable to take it anymore, I handed the phone to my wife,” said Tanveer. The person, who did not reveal his identity, was using a masked Voice over Internet Protocol number to make the call.
The information has been shared with the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Maharashtra Anti-terrorism Squad, which have been keeping track of the youngsters ever since they went missing in 2014. “We also shared our telephone number with the NIA, so they can inform us after obtaining confirmation from Indian officials in Syria or Iraq,” the victim’s father said, adding that Fahad’s last rites (Namaaz-e-zanaaja) will be conducted only after that. Thane police commissioner Param Bir Singh told HT that Tanveer’s statement was recorded at the Bazaarpeth police station, where a missing complaint was lodged after Fahad’s disappearance. “We have already intimated the NIA and the ATS in this regard,” he said.
TWO ARRESTED IN SURAT
AHMEDABAD: Two suspected ISIS operatives were on Wednesday arrested by the Gujarat Anti-terrorist Squad, which claimed that they were plotting an attack on a Jewish synagogue in Khadia area of Ahmedabad in “very near future”.
The suspects, arrested in Surat, have been identified as Mohammad Kasim Stimberwala and Ubed Ahmed Mirza, an official said. As per the FIR registered by the ATS, the duo have been radicalised by the ideology of Islamic State and were plan- ning to carry out a ‘lone-wolf’ attack on the synagogue.
THREE HELD IN KERALA
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Police arrested three men in Kerala for their suspected links with the IS terrorist group, after an intelligence report said the trio returned home when they failed to enter Syria through Turkey. The cops anticipate more people from the coastal state to return as the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate is crumbling under sustained military assaults and the group’s base in Syria and Iraq has shrunk. Their identity and details such as when they went to join the IS weren’t revealed.
Kannur police deputy superintendent PP Sadanandan said, “They said they were detained by Turkish police … and sent back to the countries from where they went,” he said.