Does separatist Syedah Asiya Andrabi have Islamic State links?

Pro-Pakistan Dukhtaran-e-Milat (DeM) leader Syedah Asiya Andrabi is under fire.

Three Hyderabad youths, who were arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) last week at the Nagpur airport, have told the Telangana police that they were on their way to Srinagar to meet Andrabi, who would have facilitated their onward journey to join the Islamic State (IS).

The three cousins, Mohammad Abdullah Basit, Syed Omer Farooq Hussaini and Maaz Hasan Farooq, are in their 20s.

They told the police that Andrabi was to have helped them cross over to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) for their onward journey to the Middle East.

The Hyderabad police had said that the youths were motivated by IS propaganda online and were caught and counselled last year. The three were planning to join IS by crossing over to PoK en route to Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.

The police have booked the trio under Sections 121 (waging or attempt to wage war against the state), 121-A (conspiracy to wage war), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The police said the three are related to former Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) president Syed Salahuddin, who was killed in a road accident in Hyderabad last year.

Andrabi, however, denied any links with the trio, claiming an attempt is being made to tarnish her image and implicate her in fabricated cases. "My name is being dragged unnecessarily. I do not know any of the persons in Hyderabad. A concerted effort is being made to tarnish my image. I came to know about the arrest of the three youths through newspaper reports," Andrabi told dna.

Andrabi, however, admitted that she knew Syed Salahudin and had attended his programmes.

She said if the state government orders a probe, her innocence would be proved. "Let them probe and it will prove that I stand nowhere in the picture," she said

Inspector general of police, Kashmir Zone, Syed Javid Mujtaba Gillani, said that they have officially got no intimation about the arrest of the threes youth and their revelations about Andrabi. "They (Hyderabad police) have not communicated to my office. I am not sure if they have communicated to the director general's office," he said.

The arrest of the youths come in the backdrop of several incidents of IS flag-hoisting in Srinagar, particularly after Friday prayers in old city.

The police had picked up several youths since the hoisting of flags last year, but investigations have not revealed any organisational structure of the outfit in the valley. A top army commander had last month said that the IS was a live threat.