Tauseef Ali Farooqui had a month to go before completing his B.Tech from IIT Guwahati when he allegedly sent an email declaring his intent to travel to “Khorasan to pledge allegiance to the Muslim-Leadership (Islamic State)”. One of the recipients was the Inspector General of Police in charge of the Assam Special Task Force. The fourth-year student of biotechnology, who comes from Zakir Nagar in Delhi, is currently in the custody of the Special Task Force at its police station in Guwahati, where he has been remanded for 10 days after being apprehended by the police on Saturday evening. Batchmates, college faculty, family members and investigators offer different descriptions of Farooqui, albeit with some overlaps – a studious youth who kept a low profile in college; the pride of his neighbourhood back home; and someone influenced by “Islamist ideas” through the dark web. His parents reported to the Special Task Force police station in Guwahati on Friday. According to a police officer, he comes from a humble background and his parents are separated. However, not only is he an IIT student, his elder brother is also a graduate from IIT-Kanpur and runs his own start-up. Police referred to Tauseef as "very intelligent”. "We still don't know what his motive was to announce his desire to join the organisation in a manner that would lead us directly to him," said a police officer. A fourth-year student from the same hostel as him said that students in the third and fourth year of B.Tech are given their individual hostel rooms, so Farooqui had not had a roommate for the last two years. A member of the institute’s administration said he is an above average student who would have graduated in a month, and the developments have surprised the faculty. “He was among us and everything was normal. The final exams were in April and he would have been done with the programme. It’s very worrying for us, and as of now we have very little information about what exactly the case is and what exactly happened to him. We hope for more clarity,” he said. At his house in Southeast Delhi's Zakir Nagar, his immediate family had left for Guwahati. Tauseef's aunt told The Indian Express, "We got to know about the arrest through the news and the family has been in shock ever since. Farooqui has always been a studious child and would even miss family events to focus on his studies.” She said that Farooqui as well as his brother are the pride of the family. “He would meet me every time he came home from Assam. He was always incredibly polite,” she said. Farooqui's mother runs a boutique in South Delhi’s Batla House, while his father stays in Patna. Said a neighbour, “His mother distributed sweets to the whole building when Tauseef got admission at IIT-Guwahati. It was a joyous occasion for the whole locality. Both their sons are the brightest boys in the neighbourhood.” Additional Superintendent of Police Kalyan Kumar Pathak referred to Farooqui as a “loner” who kept to himself, and “left his room only for classes and had a very limited friend circle”. A police officer who is part of the ongoing investigation claimed that through Farooqui’s questioning, it appears that he had been interested in studying and engaging with “Islamist” ideas for several years, even before he had joined IIT, but that it intensified in the last three or four months, with most of the engagement taking place online “through the dark web”. Among the things police claim they seized from his hostel room was a black flag. Pathak had earlier said that “prima facie, it appears to be similar to the ISIS flag”, but specialised agencies would confirm what organisation it belongs to. In the alleged email, which police said he had marked to some colleges and IGP Partha Sarathi Mahanta, he wrote that he would make hijrat – which refers to migrating from one’s own land – towards “region known as Islamic State-Khorasan Province” to pledge his allegiance, beginning the journey on foot from Guwahati. “I disassociate myself completely from the accursed ‘Indian-Construct’ that includes the so-called Indian Constitution, its institutions and so on,” the purported emails states, adding that he “disassociates” from “infidels, all of them, from every land”. Farooqui was picked up by the police from Hajo, around 20 kilometres from the IIT-Guwahati campus, from where police said that he had been missing since around noon that day. A case, which includes sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, has been registered with the STF.
