The Bombay High Court on Tuesday extended till April 20 the stay on the bail granted to ISIS recruit Areeb Majeed, a Kalyan resident who was arrested in November 2014 for having travelled to Iraq and then Syria to join the global terrorist outfit. The court order came after NIA moved the high court seeking a month’s extension on the stay in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
NIA told the court that the agency had sought an urgent hearing before Bomaby High Court on March 26 as they had filed an appeal against the lower court’s order to grant bail to Mr. Majeed, and said the petition was before the registry for verification.
Justice S.S. Shinde extended the stay till April 20. In the meantime, the court has asked the registry to register the appeal filed by NIA and complete the process expeditiously so that it can be taken up for hearing.
A special NIA court had granted bail to Mr. Majeed on March 17 but had stayed its own order till March 27 after NIA moved a plea stating that it wanted to challenge the bail granted to Mr. Majeed before the Bombay High Court. Mr. Majeed is the only ISIS recruit to have returned to India.
Mr. Majeed, along with three other persons from Kalyan identified as Fahad Shaikh, Shaheem Tanki and Aman Tandel, had left India for Iraq under the guise of pilgrimage in May 2014, and had then joined the ISIS, and later went to Syria. While the three are believed to be killed in Syria, Mr. Majeed came back to India via Turkey in November 2014.
Earlier, Mr. Majeed had moved a bail plea before the Bombay High court after the same was rejected by the special NIA court. He had pleaded that he has been in custody since more than five years. The high court had then directed him to approach the NIA court again, and the court was asked to consider the plea afresh.
NIA in its chargesheet claimed that he had participated in several attacks perpetrated by ISIS, and that Mr. Majeed had sustained bullet injuries on two occasions, and was seriously injured in a bombing following which he had decided to return to India.
The agency claimed that Mr. Majeed wanted to sneak back into the country and had approached the Indian embassy in Turkey on November 24 claiming he had lost his passport and wanted to go back to India. NIA also claimed that Mr. Majeed was influenced by the terrorist group and its activities in the later half of 2013, and came in touch with Fahad Shaikh who operated a twitter handle by the name @magnetgas which he used to propagate the ISIS ideology. Mr. Majeed then came in touch with Shaheem Tanki and Aman Tandel and they planned to join ISIS and went to Iraq by booking a pilgrimage package for ₹2,37,500.
NIA claimed that the accused had got in touch with Rehman Daulati, an Afghan national, who had introduced them to an Iraqi national named Abu Fatima who helped Mr. Majeed and others join ISIS. Mr. Majeed was taken to an ISIS camp at Jhazira, and was given a new name and was known as Abu Ali Al Hindi.
