Three youth planning to join ‘terror’ groups picked up

Three Hyderabad-based cousins, who allegedly planned to join “jihadi terror groups”, were on Saturday picked up from Nagpur international airport while on their way to Srinagar, months after they were put under watch for being influenced by online ISIS propaganda. Earlier reports had said that the trio was arrested as they were planning to join the dreaded terror outfit.

Police said the three were rounded up in a joint operation by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad and Telangana Police at the airport when they were trying to board a morning flight to Srinagar after arriving in Nagpur from Hyderabad on Friday.

The youth, in their 20s, were counselled by police last year after they were caught while allegedly planning to join ISIS and have been under watch since then. “They have a jihadi kind of mindset. They were going to Srinagar. But they do not have any connection with ISIS as of now. We do not know of anything which can suggest that they were in touch with ISIS people,” a senior Intelligence Official of Telangana Police said. “The trio wanted to reach Srinagar from where they wanted to explore (the idea of) joining some terror organisation. They did not have any well prepared plan but they wanted to explore ways to join some jihadi terror organisation,” he said.