She is a 16-year-old Muslim girl, who studies in a city college and was earlier educated in a convent school. The Pune Anti-Terrorism Squad had been monitoring her online conversations over the last few months since she had started searching about ISIS over the web. “Her grilling revealed that she was ready to go to any extent to carry out the ISIS directives”, Pune ATS officer Bhanupratap Barge said.
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According to the police, she started researching ISIS and its ideology four months ago after watching a TV programme about them.
She then used the internet to get in touch with ISIS contacts and was in touch with about 200 young persons from different countries. The police believe that through him, she was planning a trip to Iraq or Syria as ISIS members supposedly told her they would cover her medical, educational and other expenses.
“We have kept the girl under surveillance and efforts are on to de-radicalize her”, a TOI report quoted the police officer as saying. “Sirajuddin pounced on the opportunity and misled the girl”, said the ATS source.
Mohammed Sirajuddin, the International Olympic Committee staffer who had allegedly formed groups of IS sympathizers on Facebook and WhatsApp to spread the terror group’s activities online, was arrested in Jaipur last week.
“We are not aware of anything” mother of a senior Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) official has said who was arrested for his alleged links with ISIS.
The girl was in touch with the ISIS through social media, and her contacts had brain-washed and radicalised her, said the police, who have questioned the teen.
Another official said after her interactions with the group increased, there was a change in her behaviour which was noticed by her parents. Her parents have claimed they were surprised by her sudden change but did not suspect she was in contact with IS sympathisers.
Apparently shaken by the development, the mother of the accused had refused to discuss anything and even did not reveal her name when reporters approached the family for their reaction to the arrest.
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A 16-year-old girl from Pune was sent to a de-radicalization program after being found to have links with IS terrorists and sympathizers within India and outside the country. “They are in a state of shock”, the official said.
