After the four youths from Kalyan and Ayaz Sultan from Malwani, Nagpada resident Ashfaque Majeed is the latest from Mumbai to leave the country with the intention of joining terrorist outfit Islamic State, senior police officers told The Hindu on Tuesday.
On Monday, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch had registered an FIR against Arshid Qureshi, an employee of the Islamic Research Foundation headed by the now controversial preacher Zakir Naik, as well as three others, after Ashfaque’s father approached the police with a complaint against them. The accused have been booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and are accused of radicalising Ashfaque and motivating him to join the IS.
“Ashfaque was in touch with the youths from Kerala who are also missing and suspected to have joined the IS. They all hail from the same native place. However, while the other youths went from Kerala via Sri Lanka, Ashfaque left from Mumbai for Iran in June this year and is believed to have joined the IS from there. His radicalisation as well as his departure occurred in Mumbai, and Qureshi, according to Ashfaque’s father, played a key role, as the two met frequently, particularly over the last one year, and spent a lot of time together,” a senior police officer said.
Investigators said that Ashfaque is a science graduate and had been staying in Mumbai for the last several years. His father, Abdul Kadir, runs a guest house in the Nagpada area, which is frequented by visitors from his native Kerala. Sources said that Ashfaque’s father approached the office of the Mumbai Police Commissioner last month after learning that Qureshi and Rizwan Khan, a Kalyan resident, had been arrested by the Kerala police for alleged radicalisation and forced conversion, as he had frequently seen his son in Qureshi and Khan’s company for the last two years. The matter was then handed over to the Crime Branch for investigation.
“Ashfaque’s father has said in his statement that over the last one year, Ashfaque’s behaviour changed radically. He became very aggressive and fundamentalist in his approach, and had numerous fights with his father on the subject of their religion. There have been several examples in the last six to eight months where Ashfaque had fights with his father, telling the latter that his behaviour was not in accordance with the tenets of Islam,” an officer who is part of the investigation said.
Apart from Qureshi, the other three accused include Rizwan Khan and two others, one of whom is a resident of Ashfaque’s native place, while the other is among the youths missing from Kerala, the police said.
In June 2014, Kalyan residents Areeb Majeed, Saheem Tanki, Fahad Sheikh and Aman Tandel went missing and later joined the IS in Syria. Areeb, after sustaining a bullet injury and becoming ‘disillusioned’, reached out to Indian authorities and was brought back to India on November 28, 2014, after which he was placed under arrest.
In October 2015, Ayaz Sultan, a resident of the Malwani area in Malad, similarly went missing and was later confirmed to have joined the IS module in Kabul, Afghanistan. Both Areeb and Ayaz have been booked under the UAPA.
Ashfaque left from Mumbai for Iran in June this year and is believed to have joined the IS
