Kalyan youth may be in ISIS ‘custody’

NEW DELHI: One of the three Kalyan youth who volunteered to fight for ISIS and are still holed up in Iraq/Syria, may be in "custody" of the global terror outfit in Mosul, according to intelligence reports reaching New Delhi. The suspected reason is that ISIS may have got whiff of the youth's plans to "desert" the ISIS territory and escape to India.

Sources in the security establishment indicated that R&AW, in its latest report, cited inputs that ISIS may be "holding" the Kalyan youth in Mosul. The intelligence, which needs to be further confirmed, follows reports in the foreign media that ISIS had executed around 100 members for trying to flee their base in the northern Syrian city of Raqaa.

It may be recalled that the parents of the three ISIS youth, encouraged by the safe return of the fourth Kalyan youth Areeb Majeed to Mumbai recently, have been in touch with the Indian government to also secure their release from ISIS territory and facilitation of their journey back home.

Of late, each of the three youth -- Faheem Tanki, Aman Tandel and Fahad Shaikh - have been making contact with their respective families no more than once in a month. The calls are made from phones provided by the ISIS and Indian intelligence agencies suspect that the conversations are under active surveillance of the ISIS leadership.

The four young men from Kalyan had escaped to Iraq in May to join ISIS after being allegedly indoctrinated mostly through online activity.