The 26-year-old Islamic State sympathiser from Hyderabad, who is currently lodged in Tihar Jail, was the founder of an online magazine 'Voice of Hind', inciting Muslims against non-Muslims and exhorting them to rise against the government of India and join ISIS.
Abdullah Basith alias Khattab Bhai, from Gulshan Iqbal Colony in Chandrayangutta of old city, was helping the Kashmiri couple, Jahanzaib Sami (36) and Hina Bashir Beigh (39), the operatives of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), from inside the prison in preparing the magazine.
Later, officials of the National Investigation Department, found soft copies of the magazine in a smart phone reportedly seized from Basith.
The magazine eulogises ISIS/ISKP terrorists, including Huzaifa-al-Bakistani, a highly-trained Pakistani national, who was a key recruiter for IS and also the mastermind of the banned outfit's activities in Jammu and Kashmir. Huzaifa was killed in July 2019 in a drone strike in Afghanistan.
Basith, who was arrested by the agency in August 2018 in connection with the 2016 Abu Dhabi module, used to be in touch with Huzaifa on the phone. Before his arrest, the engineering drop-out went to New Delhi in June 2018 to make a deal for two AK-47 assault rifles with a Kashmiri youth.
Basith had hatched a conspiracy to kill a top Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader in Maharashtra, an official said. However, his plans failed after the Delhi Police Special Cell arrested the Kashmiri youth, which forced Basith to return to Hyderabad fearing arrest.
He got attracted towards radical ideology during his engineering days and was further motivated to take up ‘Hijra’ (migration), a term used by the extremists to India from a foreign land for Jihad.
The youngster tried to flee the country twice though Srinagar and West Bengal in 2014 and 2015, respectively. However, his attempts failed after he was apprehended by the SIT.