J&K govt to probe revelation by Hyd youths

The Jammu and Kashmir government and police will verify claims with regard to the alleged plan for meeting separatist leader Asiya Andrabi by three youths who have been arrested for trying to join jihadi terror groups, Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh today said. "Definitely, the government and police will verify these facts. There is every apprehension of such a thing. If it is proved, then the government will act as per law," Singh told reporters here. He was replying to a question on the revelation that three Hyderabad-based cousins who were arrested for allegedly planning to join jihadi terror groups had been looking to meet Andrabi using the name of their late uncle, the former chief of Students Islamic Movement of India, Syed Salahuddin. "Mohd Abdulla Basith, Maaz Hasan Farooq and Syed Omer Farooq Hussaini had no direct connection with Andrabi, nor did she know them. "After reaching Srinagar, they wanted to meet her using their uncle's name and seek her help to cross the border and reach Jalalabad in Afghanistan," said a senior officer of the special investigation team of Hyderabad police. Andrabi is a leader of the separatist Kashmiri women's group, Dukhtaran-e-Millat. The trio, all students (aged around 20-22), were picked up from Nagpur airport last week and arrested by Hyderabad police on December 27. During interrogation, they confessed to holding jihadi ideology and said they were trying to go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine via Kashmir to join jihadi forces of ISIS/ISIL to wage war against the state (India or elsewhere), the officer said.