Sharda University Student Returns Home Days After Joining 'Islamic State of Jammu & Kashmir'

Srinagar, December 03: A 17-year-old Kashmiri student Ahtesham Bilal Sofi who went missing from Sharda University, Greater Noida, on October 28 have been detained Jammu and Kashmir police from his home. Last month, reports surfaced that joined Islamic State Jammu and Kashmir (ISJK) terror outfit. As per reports, the Kashmir Student returned home with the help of his family. Bilal is a first-year graduate student. As per media reports, he left the university with official permission to go to Delhi. 

A missing report was also filed in Greater Noida as well as Srinagar. After he went missing a picture of him wearing a black outfit and posing with weapons and a flag of the Islamic State surfaced on the social media. An audio message was also released. In the audio message, a person who claimed to be Bilal had announced that he had joined the IS group operating in Jammu and Kashmir.

The UP Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) was tracking the case since October 28. The Noida police also traced the last location of Bilal's mobile phone to terrorism-hit Pulwama district in South Kashmir, after he went missing from the university. He had earlier been beaten up by Indian students in a case of mistaken identity at the university campus in October when a scuffle broke out with Afghan students.

In another incident, a 21-year-old Shoaib Ahmed Lone, an engineering student who was studying at a Dehradun college, joined a terrorist outfit just two weeks after he went missing in September. Lone joined the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit. The 21-year-old Kashmiri student was studying BTech (IT) at Dehradun’s Alpine Institute of Management and Technology (AIMT).

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 03, 2018 09:49 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).