NIA arrests Bengaluru physician for alleged links with ISIS

New Delhi: The NIA has arrested an ophthalmologist from a medical college in Bengaluru for allegedly being in touch with ISIS operatives, working to develop a medical and a weaponry-related applications to help terrorist cadres and furthering its activities in the country, officials said on Tuesday.

Abdur Rahman, 28, working at M S Ramaiah Medical College, was taken into custody on Monday in connection with the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) case being probed by the agency, they said.

The ISKP case was initially registered by the Delhi Police Special Cell in March 2020, after the arrest of a Kashmiri couple – Jahanzaib Sami Wani and his wife Hina Bashir Beigh – from Okhla Vihar, Jamia Nagar in the national capital.

The couple having affiliations with the ISKP, an affiliate group of ISIS, were allegedly involved in subversive and anti-national activities and were in touch with a member of the Abu Dhabi module of the ISIS, Abdullah Basith, who was arrested in a separate NIA case and lodged in Tihar jail.

“During interrogation, arrested accused Rahman confessed that he was conspiring with accused Sami and other Syria-based ISIS operatives on secure messaging platforms to further ISIS activities. He was in the process of developing a medical application for helping the injured ISIS cadres in the conflict zones and a weaponry-related application for the benefit of ISIS fighters,” NIA spokesperson Sonia Narang said.

The NIA has found that Rahman allegedly toured Syria and visited an ISIS medical camp in early 2014 for treatment of the terrorists for 10 days and returned to India.

After Rahman’s arrest, the NIA carried out searches at three of his premises and seized digital devices, mobile phone, laptop containing incriminating material, Narang said.

Besides Rahman and the Kashmir couple, the agency had also arrested two Pune residents – Sadiya Anwar Sheikh and Nabeel Siddick Khatri – for allegedly being part of the conspiracy to further the activities of ISIS/ISKP in India and to carry out subversive activities in the garb of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests.