‘IS recruiter’ used invisible internet project to communicate with his handler, says NIA

The NIA has stumbled upon this information while investigating a complaint filed by one Abdul Majeed. The latter had approached the agency with a complaint that his son Ashfaque had fled India to join IS after being radicalised by four people, including Rashid. Three others namely Arshi Qureshi, Rizwan Khan, and Mohammad Haneef have already been arrested, and are currently in judicial custody.

While Qureshi was a guest manager of the now banned Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), Khan was a volunteer with a Mazgaon-based NGO, Al Birr Foundation. Haneef, on the other hand, was an imam based out of Kerala.

“We interrogated Rashid’s brother in the case. It was then that he revealed Rashid had been using darknet for communication purposes. The brother, however, asserted that Rashid had refused to share any more details regarding the technology he had been using. Since it is difficult to track the digital footprint in the case of darknet, we haven’t been able to retrieve much from the articles seized from his home,” said an official.

A darknet is a computer network with restricted access. It is mainly used for illegal peer-to-peer communication.

In its chargesheet that the agency is likely to file in the said case next month, the NIA will state that Ashfaque was slowly drawn into the IS fold through sustained indoctrination. This included showing him videos of the execution carried out by IS, the articles in IS’s mouth piece Dabiq, and also videos of IS caliphate Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Sources, however, said they hadnot found evidence to link controversial televangelist and IRF’s founder Zakir Naik. “While Ashfaque was a regular at the IRF office in Dongri we have not found any evidence to link Naik to the case,” said a source. “While the four accused radicalised Ashfaque, there is no common link connecting them,” he added further.

The agency has also recorded the statement of MM Akbar, renowned Islamic preacher and founder of Peace International School in Kochi in connection with the case.

Rashid used to teach at the school. In his statement , Akbar has told the agency that he expelled Rashid after learning that he was conducting ‘jihadi’ training. The probe has also ascertained that Ashfaque funded his travels to Sri Lanka in February and also to Afghanistan in June last year.

“While Majeed had claimed that Qureshi had funded Ashfaque’s travel to Sri Lanka to attend a course on ‘learning Quran’ however during the investigation we found that Ashfaque who managed their family’s motel at Central Mumbai saved Rs 10,000 every month for personal expenses. Through his savings he funded his Sri Lanka and Afghanistan trips,” added the official

The NIA has also recovered over 500 applications from Khan’s Kalyan home. Most of these applications pertain to conversion. “Khan who worked as a volunteer with Al Birr Foundation helped in documentation work for seekers converting to Islam. While we have recovered a heap of documents from his home, a chunk of it is related to conversion. He operated out of the Esplanade Court in South Mumbai where he used to help seekers make affidavits necessary to convert their religion,” revealed an official.