NIA approaches ATS of states to identify youths in ISIS video

The NIA has contacted anti-terror squads of various states including Delhi, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh to help identify the Indian youths who featured in the ISIS video in which they threatened to launch terror strikes in the country. NIA is also likely to question Abdul Wahid Siddibapa, one of the founders of banned terror group Indian Mujahideen who was arrested at the airport on Friday after he landed from a gulf country, soon about IM cadres who joined the Islamic State, official sources said. Wahid, a resident of Bhatkal in North Karnatka and a close relative of IM chief Riyaz Ahmad Shahbandri alias Riyaz Bhatkal, is alleged to be the financier of the banned terror group. Sources in the NIA said he would be able to throw more light on the IM cadres who got disenchanted and shifted allegiance to the IS. Several IM cadres are believed to have joined ISIS since 2014 after they rejected the leadership of its Karnataka-born Riyaz Bhatkal. Sources said it was not immediately clear how old the 22-minute video was as one of the persons shown in it was Mohammad 'Bada' Sajid, who was said to have been killed while fighting the allied forces in Syria last year. Sajid, who hails from Sanjarpur in UP, had been named by the NIA as one of the perpetrators of the IM bombings of 2008 that killed over 100 people and injured many more in New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. While the process to identify others was on, family members of the youths from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh featuring in the video have been contacted to help the investigating agency in establishing their identity. The video, which is mainly in Arabic, says 'Jihadis' from 'Hind' wal 'Sindh' (India and Pakistan) "will soon take revenge" for the demolition of Babri Mosque and atrocities on Muslims in Kashmir and during Muzaffarnagar riots.