Student leaves studies to join terrorists, police launch probe

JAMMU: The police in Jammu and Kashmir was investigating the case of an engineering student who left his studies to become a militant and his photograph holding an AK assault rifle was doing rounds on social media. Mohammad Eisa Fazli, a resident of Shadab colony near Soura in the outskirts of Srinagar, went missing from his hostel room in Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University (BGSBU) in Rajouri on August 17.

Two days later a picture of him holding the rifle was uploaded on Facebook announcing that he had joined “jihad” (holy war).

He had joined B Tech (IT) course in the university in 2014.

According to the Facebook post, he joined Al-qaeda cell, ‘Ansar Ghazwat-ul-hind’, headed by engineering dropout Zakir Rashid Bhat alias Zakir Musa.

The police was trying to ascertain how the student got radicalised and left his studies after completing his sixth semester to join the militant group.

“The boy had gone to his home for a two-month holiday and is believed to have come in contact with militants there.

Srinagar Police is investigating the matter,” Senior Super- intendent of Police, Rajouri, Yougal Manhas said.

“As part of our investigation, we visited the university, conducted a search of his room and questioned his close friends and roommates. But nothing incriminating was found from his room,” the SSP said. He said the questioning of his friends and roommates also yielded nothing as they were also shocked by his decision.

“We came to know that he had talked about Azadi (freedom) of Kashmir on several occasions but never expressed his desire to join militants,” the officer said. He said there are two types of radicalisation-expressed radicalisation and internal radicalisation--and his case was an example of internal radicalisation.

Manhas said police has not come across any case of expressed radicalisation in the ongoing investigation so far. CHENNAI: The DMK on Thursday lashed out at the BJPled government at the Centre and the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu on the NEET issue, charging them with “betraying” scores of medical aspirants in the state, especially those from rural areas.

It led an agitation which was attended by a number of other parties, on the issue here, two days after the Centre told the Supreme Court that it was not in favour of the recent ordinance passed by Tamil Nadu to exempt it from the National Eligibilitycum-entrance Test (NEET) this year.

Subsequently, the court has asked the state government to start counselling for admissions for MBBS and BDS seats in the state based on the NEET merit list and complete the process by September 4.

Counselling got underway yesterday.

Leading the protest here on Thursday, DMK working president and Leader of Opposition M K Stalin said the introduction of NEET had “betrayed” thousands of rural students who had aspired to join medical courses.

The protest is being held in the backdrop of Tamil Nadu “pawning its rights before Central government,” he said.

“How many rural students have been betrayed. How their dreams have been buried. This is because of the BJP at the Centre and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu,” Stalin said.

The protest was attended by the DMK’S ally the Congress, CPI(M), CPI, VCK and MMK.

Stalin said the DMK had always opposed NEET and recalled that entrance exams were done away during earlier DMK rule and admission to medical courses in Tamil Nadu were so far based on marks secured in Class 12 exams.