Hyderabad: Three city-linked ISIS terrorists sentenced to imprisonment

Hyderabad: The special court of National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday awarded sentences to 15 persons who were allegedly members of the terror organisation ISIS and 3 among them had links from Hyderabad.

The three from Hyderabad who were convicted in the case were Md. Shareef Moinuddin of Tolichowki, Obedullah Khan, a resident of Saidabad, Nafees Khan alias Fatima Khan alias Abu Zarrar of Madhapur.

The special court of NIA sentenced, Nafees Khan to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) and a fine of Rs. 1.03 lakh was imposed on him, Shareef Moinuddin Khan and Obedullah Khan were sentenced for five years of RI and a fine of Rs. 38,000 was imposed each of them.

The other 12 who were sentenced were Mudabbir Mushtaq Sheikh, Abu Anas, Mufti Abdus Sami, Azhar Khan, Amzad Khan, Asif Ali, Mohd Hussain, Syed Mujahid, Md Aleem, Md Afzal, Najmal Huda and Sohail Ahmad. All these accused were sentenced around 5 to 7 years for their links with ISIS.

An NIA spokesperson on Saturday said that, the Special court of NIA in Delhi on Friday pronounced sentence to 15 accused persons in ISIS conspiracy case.

He noted, "The NIA registered a case on December 9, 2015 under section 125 IPC and sections 18, 18B, 38 & 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, pertaining to criminal conspiracy hatched by the ISIS to establish its base in India by recruiting Muslim youth through different social media platforms."

"During investigation, searches were conducted in various cities across the country and 19 accused were arrested. Later on it was revealed that the accused persons had formed an organisation by the name Junood-ul-Khilafa-Fil-Hind (a group seeking to establish Caliphate in India and pledging allegiance to the ISIS/ISIL) to recruit Muslim youth to work for ISIS and commit acts of terrorism in India at the behest of one Yusuf-Al-Hindi aka Shafi Armar aka Anjan Bhai, who was based in Syria and was purportedly the media chief of ISIS," explained the official of NIA.

The official of NIA said that the case had a huge impact on like-minded people who were likely to join ISIS, but after these arrests their activities were minimized. Many ISIS sympathisers, who went to join ISIS, were intercepted at various locations in the Middle East and were deported back to India.

The NIA had filed charge sheets against 16 accused persons in 2016-2017. NIA claims that this case was the first of its kind in which an extensive terrorist conspiracy involving online radicalisation was hatched in cyber space in the aftermath of the declaration of the Islamic Caliphate by Abu-Baqar-Al-Bagdadi in 2014 and Yusuf Al Hindi based in Syria.