The National Investigation Agency on Tuesday arrested an ophthalmologist at a college in Bengaluru for allegedly “furthering activities” of Islamic State Khorasan Province, a branch of the Islamic State terrorist group, The Print reported.
The NIA said Abdur Rahman was developing a medical and weaponry-related online application for Islamic State members. “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,” an NIA statement said, according to News18.
The investigation agency raided three premises in Bengaluru after arresting Rahman and seized digital devices, a mobile phone and a laptop containing allegedly incriminating material.
The agency officials said that Rahman had visited an Islamic State medical camp in Syria in 2014 and stayed with the group. “During interrogation, arrested accused Abdur Rahman confessed that he was conspiring with accused Jahanzaib Sami and other Syria-based ISIS operatives on secure messaging platforms to further ISIS activities,” the NIA statement said.
The MS Ramaiah College, where Rahman studied and worked, denied any knowledge of his activities outside the campus. “He was admitted to the college in 2017 under the government quota, through the Karnataka Examinations Authority,” a college statement said. “The college is not aware of his activities outside the campus.”
Rahman was arrested in the same case that the Special Cell of the Delhi Police registered in March, after the arrest of Jahanzaib Sami Wani and Hina Bashir Beigh, a Kashmiri couple from Jamia Nagar in the national Capital. The couple allegedly had links with the Islamic State Khorasan Province and were involved in “subversive and anti-national activities”. Further investigations led the NIA to Sadiya Anwar Sheikh and Nabeel Siddick Khatri, who they alleged were carrying out subversive activities in Pune under the garb of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests.
The NIA will produce Rahman in a Delhi court and seek his custody to interrogate him.
The Khorasan unit of the Islamic State had attempted a suicide attack in India in 2018 but failed. This unit of the terrorist group, formed in 2015, operates mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan but has now begun to branch out to other parts of South Asia.
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