By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Mumbai: Four Kalyan youth, who had gone missing since May 23 and alleged by the Indian security agencies to have gone to Iraq for taking up arms alongside Islamic State, are now reported to have called their parents seeking arrangement for return.
Kalyan is a bustling city in neighbouring Thane district. Incidentally, one of the youth’s father, claimed he did not give any statement to the NIA.
Union Home Ministry sources have claimed that the four youth – Aman Tandel, Fahad Shaikh, Arif Majeed and Sahim Tanki – had reportedly gone to the war torn countries – Iraq and Syria. Mumbai police, including the ATS, and the national security agencies, which were investigating the whereabouts, had claimed that the youth had joined the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Missing Kalyan Youths reportedly in Iraq
“We have information that the three other youth from Kalyan, who had also gone to Iraq to fight alongside IS fighters, also want to come back, though their families are yet to get in touch with the government or its agencies as in the case of Arif. His father Ejaz Majeed has sought help from the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) sleuths. It may be the case that these youth are yet to come out of the fighting zone as Arif managed to flee from there,” Hindustan Times quoted the Home Ministry official requesting anonymity.
Even the Times of India quoted a senior intelligence officer, who said, “All four are in touch with their families here and sought facilitation for rescue and return. However, only Arif’s family has contacted the NIA office in Mumbai and sought the intervention of the Centre to bring him back.”
This latest report from the Home Ministry sources contradicts the Indian security agencies claim earlier in September when it had gone on record to say one of these youth Arif Majeed has been killed in Mosul while fighting for Islamic State in Iraq.
It was reported that a militant website isaba.tk had eulogized Arif’s death terming it to be martyrdom and had called upon India’s Muslims to learn from Arif’s struggle. But now the ministry and intelligence sources are claiming that Arif Majeed is indeed alive and contacted his father Dr Ejaz Majeed urging him to facilitate for his return to India.
As reported, the authoritative government sources have said that Ejaz Majid had met senior NIA officers last Thursday in Mumbai and told them he had received a phone call from a mobile. It was his son Arif, who told him he had fled from IS-controlled areas to Turkey after fighting for the militant group, for nearly three months.
Incidentally, father of Dr Ejaz Majeed Arif – reported by security agencies in the past to have been killed – has told Kalyan police that he has not given any such statement to NIA officials, who are claiming that Arif asked for government’s help in bringing him back.
Hypothetically, if these youths are brought back to India and even if it was established that they indeed joined IS in its fighting then also it would not be possible for the Indian agencies to prosecute them under Indian penal code for terrorism activities or Unlawful Activities Prevention Act as Islamic State is not a terrorist organization as listed in the official gazette of the country.
A senior intelligence official, who spoke with ToI, conceded that the government is willing to take a sympathetic view on the matter but it was virtually impossible to negotiate the return of a person associated with a globally proscribed outfit. “Besides, who do we talk to about the return of the Kalyan youth still in the ISIS zone …Who will go there to seek them out?” wondered the official.
A couple of months before, the Central agency has reported that it had verified information that Fahad Shaikh is working in an oil refinery and Saheem Tanki in a hospital in the Syrian city of Rakka but intelligence could not gather information about Arif Majeed and Aman Tandel.
Despite such conflicting reports in the media but the dilemma still exists over the fate of these four youths for which neither the family nor investigation agencies have any clear proof to ascertain destiny of the missing youths.
Related:
2 out of 4 missing Kalyan youths have not taken up arms in the Islamic State: NIA sources