India
Updated : Apr 25, 2015, 10:41 PM IST
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is likely to arrest Arif Majeed, one of the four Kalyan youths who got enamoured by the ISIS and left India to join the outfit in Iraq in May this year.
Majeed, a third year civil engineering student, returned back to his home from Turkey on Friday morning after reportedly serving Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a frontline fighter.
He was in August assumed killed, and his family had even performed ghaibaana namaaz-e-janaaza (funeral prayer in the absence of the body).
Arif had left for Iraq on May 24 with three other friends- Fahad Sheikh, a mechanical engineering graduate, Amaan Tandel, third-year mechanical engineering student, and Saheem Tanki, a high school drop-out.
Sources in the security establishment said Majeed has bullet and splinter wounds. During interrogation by the NIA sleuths, he reportedly accepted that he got the wounds while fighting on behalf of the ISIS in Mosul, Iraq's war-torn town.
After getting wounded during fighting Majeed managed to go to Turkey, as he had earned the confidence of his seniors in ISIS for being a fierce fighter, and from there he got in touch with his family, which contacted the union home ministry. The ministry facilitated his return.
It could not be ascertained if Arif himself wanted to come back.
Security agencies said Arif Majeed appears to be far too radicalised and brainwashed to be set free. Moreover, he fought alongside an organisation that has been declared a proscribed terror outfit, sources said.
Giving amnesty to such a person may convey a wrong message, said sources.
"Arif (has started talking) and may give us more information about the other youths who have gone from India to join ISIS," said sources.
Arif's questioning is also expected to throw light on the ISIS's plans with regard to countries like India.
The agencies, however, are still hopeful about three other youths who are in touch with their families and are desperate to return back.
"Their families have not yet contacted us yet but we know the boys are in regular touch with them. It seems they have not turned radical yet and are regretting their misadventure. If that be the case, we will not press for their arrest on their return," said sources.
About 20 Indian youths, including four Kalyan boys, are said to have been recruited by the ISIS.
While the government is trying to downplay the ISIS threat, it is worried because of Intelligence Bureau's assessment that the outfit is gaining ground in India through the internet, and hundreds of youths are getting radicalised through self-indoctrination.
The assessment has resulted in a special session called 'Strategy to counter radicalisation and foil attempts to attract the youth to ISIS and Qaedat-al-Jihad' at the conference of top police officials in Guwahati on November 29 and 30.
The director generals of police (DGPs) of various states have been asked to come with the situational report of what kind of ISIS and al-Qaeda threat exists on the ground, what are the reasons that make ISIS an attractive proposition to even educated youth and what can be done to disenchant youth about ISIS' rhetoric.