Bengaluru ophthalmologist accused of furthering ISIS cause arrested by NIA

New Delhi, Aug 18: Abdur Rahman, an ophthalmologist working in Bengaluru has been arrested in connection with an Islamic State Khorasan Province Case has been arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

He is a resident of Basavangudi, Bengaluru and is working as an Ophthalmologist at M.S. Ramaiah Medical College, Bangalore, the NIA said in a note.

M S Ramaiah however said in a statement that Rehman was a post-graduate student in the department of ophthalmology in the college. "According to our records, he passed his MBBS from the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute in the year 2014 and was admitted to our college in 2017 under the government quota through allotment from the Karnataka Examinations Authority. He completed his MS Ophthalmology during the examinations conducted by the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Health Sciences in the month of July 2020. The college is not ware of his activities outside the campus," M S Ramaiah Medical College said in a statement.

This case was initially registered by Delhi Police Special Cell in March, 2020, after the arrest of a Kashmiri couple Jahanzaib Sami Wani and his wife Hina Bashir Beigh from Okhla Vihar, Jamia Nagar in Delhi.

The couple was found to be having affiliations with ISKP, which is a banned terrorist organisation and is a part of ISIS and were found to be involved in subversive and anti-national activities. They were also found to be in touch with Abdullah Basith, who was already lodged in Tihar jail in another NIA case.

During further investigation, NIA arrested two more accused Sadiya Anwar Sheikh and Nabeel Siddick Khatri, both residents of Pune, for being part of the conspiracy to further the activities of ISIS/ISKP in India and to carry out subversive activities in the garb of anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests.

During interrogation, arrested accused Abdur Rahman confessed that he was conspiring with accused Jahanzaib Sami and other Syria-based ISIS operatives on secure messaging platforms to further ISIS activities. He was in the process of developing a medical application for helping the injured ISIS cadres in the conflict-zones and a weaponry-related application for the benefit of ISIS fighters.

He had visited an ISIS medical camp in Syria in early 2014 for treatment of ISIS terrorists and stayed with Islamic State operatives for 10 days and returned to India.

After arresting him, NIA carried out searches at 3 premises belonging to him in Bangalore with the assistance of Karnataka Police and seized digital devices, mobile phone, laptop containing incriminating material.