Budding engineers who ‘strayed into IM’s jihad’

Mahruf, the son of an executive engineer with the Rajasthan electricity board, had scored 94 per cent in his Class 10 board exams and 81 per cent in Class 12. He had then appeared for the Rajasthan Pre-Engineering Test, and got admission at the Vivekananda Institute of Technology, the sources said.

Mahruf was arrested along with 21-year-old Mohammed Waqar Azhar, also a student of engineering. Waqar, the son of a scrap dealer, had scored 80 per cent in his Class 10 exams, and 75 per cent in Class 12.

Waqar’s father Qamruddin Nagar has a small shop, but had encouraged his son to become an engineer. Waqar is learnt to have told interrogators that he had dreamt of getting admission in an IIT.

He had joined the L N Coaching Centre in Kota, and had dropped an academic year to be able to attend coaching classes.

However, he could not clear the entrance exam, and took admission at an engineering institute in Jaipur, where he was studying mechanical engineering at the time of his arrest.

According to the police, Waqar came in touch with Mahruf and some others while staying at Pratap Nagar in Jaipur, and was brainwashed into joining the IM.

Police sources claimed Mahruf himself had been radicalised by a man named Atta, whom Mahruf had met on Facebook.

They said that after getting involved with the IM, Waqar had lost interest in studies, and had failed in 16 papers in his fourth year of engineering.