Three Islamic State operatives from Hyderabad were among 15 people who were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment by a Special Court for National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases, in New Delhi.
They were sentenced in an IS conspiracy in Delhi, registered by the agency in 2015.
Nafees Khan alias Fatima Khan alias Abu Zarrar of Madhapur, Mohammed Shariff Moinudeen from Tolichowki and Mohammed Obedullah of Saidabad were among the accused who were awarded prison terms along with a fine.
The orders were passed by Parveen Singh, Special Judge for NIA at Patiala House Court Complex, New Delhi, on October 16.
While Nafees Khan was sentenced to 10 years RI with a fine of ₹1.03 lakh, Moinudeen and Obedullah got five years RI each and a fine of ₹38,000.
The other 12 who were sentenced by the NIA Special Court are Mudabbir Mushtaq Sheikh, Abu Anas, Mufti Abdus Sami, Azhar Khan, Amzad Khan, Asif Ali, Mohd. Hussain, Syed Mujahid, Najmul Huda, Mohd. Obedullah, Md. Aleem, Md. Afzal, and Sohail Ahmad.
The case was registered by NIA, New Delhi, on September 12, 2015, under section 125 of Indian Penal Code and sections 18, 18B, 38 & 39 of UA(P) Act, 1967 and pertains to criminal conspiracy hatched by the ISIS to establish its base in India by recruiting Muslim youth for ISIS, a proscribed terrorist organization by using different social media platforms.
During the investigation, searches were conducted in various cities across the country and 19 accused were arrested. It was revealed that the accused persons had formed an organization by name Junood-ul-Khilafa-Fil-Hind (a group seeking to establish Caliphate in India and pledging allegiance to ISIS/ISIL) to recruit Muslim youth to work for ISIS and commit acts of terrorism in India at the behest of one Yusuf-Al-Hindi alias Shafi Armar alias Anjan Bhai, who was based in Syria and was purportedly the media chief of ISIS.
The case had a huge impact on the like-minded people who were likely to join ISIS, officials said.
“After the arrest the ISIS terrorists in this case, their activities were minimized and their other associates were identified and questioned to unravel their further plans,” they said.
Several ISIS sympathisers, who had gone to join ISIS, were intercepted at various locations in the Middle East and were deported back to India, they said.
The investigation conducted by the agency stopped the facilitation of the ISIS members in India as well as abroad and After completion of the investigation, NIA had filed charge-sheets against 16 accused persons in 2016-2017.
The investigators said that this case was first-of-its-kind in which an extensive terrorist conspiracy involving online radicalisation was hatched on cyberspace in the aftermath of the declaration of Islamic Caliphate by Abu-Baqar-Al-Bagdadi in 2014; and Yusuf Al Hindi alias Shafi Armar, based in Syria had slowly radicalized a number of accused and eventually motivated them towards violent jihad as propagated by ISIS.
