Bengaluru: Nine Indians, including a family of seven, who were deported from Turkey over suspicions that they wanted to join the Islamic State (IS), have been freed after being interrogated by the Bengaluru Police. The city's police chief, MN Reddi, said that the group has not shown any signs of affiliation to the IS.
The group travelled from Bengaluru to Istanbul on December 24, and were sent back on Friday. Turkish officials allegedly told Indian intelligence agencies that the group wanted to cross the border into Syria and join the hardline Islamist militants of IS, which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria.
The group included Muhammed Abdul Ahad from Chennai, his wife and five children. Mr Ahad, 46, studied engineering at a US university and worked there for more than 10 years before returning to Chennai. The two other men who were detained and questioned are also engineers.
"All of them were influenced by what they say is ordained in their religious book - that they need to go to the Shami area or Levant region where they are expected to work for humanity or their religion. This is what they believe according to what they are taught, or what they say they have been taught or what they interpret their religion as," the Police Commissioner said.
"They have been interrogated, interviewed by both central agencies and Bangalore police. We did not find any direct culpability on the part of any of these individuals. Therefore we have not registered any criminal case against them."
The police Commissioner said the families of the two younger engineers, Javeed Baba and Ibrahim Nowfal, were not aware of their plans to head to Turkey, and possibly to Syria.
Recently, a man had been arrested in Bengaluru for allegedly running the pro-IS Twitter handle ShamiWitness.