Hyderabad: A Hyderabad-based engineer who has studied in the US was arrested on Friday by the Telangana police for suspected links with the terror group Islamic State.
22-year-old Salman Moinuddin, a resident of Asif Nagar in Hyderabad, was stopped by security agencies at the airport on Thursday when he was about to take a flight to Dubai. He has now been arrested.
Moinuddin, who is married, has a Master of Science degree from Houston. The police say he has confessed that he was going to join the Islamic State.
In Dubai, Moinuddin allegedly planned to join his girlfriend, British national Nicky Joseph.
Nicky Joseph is believed to be married to a UK-based doctor and allegedly goes by the name Ayesha after converting to Islam recently.
In December, the police arrested Mehdi Masoor Biswas, a 24-year-old food company executive from Bangalore, saying he was running the pro-Islamic State Twitter handle @ShamiWitness that had over 17,000 followers, including hundreds of foreign fighters for the group.
Senior officials associated with the case told the NDTV "Moinuddin had radicalized himself by accessing IS propaganda material on the internet."
The arrest reinforced fears that IS militants are attempting to recruit radicalised Muslim youngsters online. There are about 20 cases in India where young self-radicalized young boys have wanted either the IS or propagate the cause of IS in India. It includes a Mumbai based software profession who wanted to attack the American School.
According to counter-terrorism experts who are advising the government, the formation of Caliphate in Syria has had much traction among fringe elements unlike the Al Qaeda or the Laskhar-e-Taiba. "Al Qaeda and others were dismissed because they were viewed groups which failed to achieve much. On the contrary the IS by holding ground and declaring the formation of the Caliphate holds hope to these fringe elements" a senior counter terror specialist told NDTV.
22-year-old Salman Moinuddin, a resident of Asif Nagar in Hyderabad, was stopped by security agencies at the airport on Thursday when he was about to take a flight to Dubai. He has now been arrested.
Moinuddin, who is married, has a Master of Science degree from Houston. The police say he has confessed that he was going to join the Islamic State.
Nicky Joseph is believed to be married to a UK-based doctor and allegedly goes by the name Ayesha after converting to Islam recently.
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Senior officials associated with the case told the NDTV "Moinuddin had radicalized himself by accessing IS propaganda material on the internet."
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According to counter-terrorism experts who are advising the government, the formation of Caliphate in Syria has had much traction among fringe elements unlike the Al Qaeda or the Laskhar-e-Taiba. "Al Qaeda and others were dismissed because they were viewed groups which failed to achieve much. On the contrary the IS by holding ground and declaring the formation of the Caliphate holds hope to these fringe elements" a senior counter terror specialist told NDTV.
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