Missing Sharda university student case handed over to J&K cops

New Delhi, Nov 10: The Noida police have handed over a probe relating to a Kashmiri student joining a terror group to their counterparts in Jammu and Kashmir. The probe relates to one Ahtesham Bilal Sofi, 17, a resident of downtown Srinagar joining the Islamic State Jammu and Kashmir.

He was a first year graduation student at Greater Noida's Sharda University.

He went missing on October 28 after he left the university with official permission to go to Delhi, days after he was mistakenly roughed up during a scuffle between Indian and Afghan students in the campus.

A missing complaint was registered in the case in Greater Noida as well as Srinagar, officials said.

The Noida police had scanned the CCTV footage and even questioned several people about his whereabouts. It was found that he had left on his own will. The case now falls under the jurisdiction of the J&K police, officials said. A team of the police had returned from Srinagar recently after handing over the case files.

The pictures on social media showed Sofi dressed in a black outfit and claimed he had joined terrorist group ISJK, an outfit influenced by ISIS ideology.

The UP Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) said it has been tracking the case since October 28 and has taken cognisance of the photos.

The Jammu and Kashmir police said they were "ascertaining" Sofi's presence in the Valley.
The Gautam Buddh Nagar police, who had traced the last location of Sofi's mobile phone to terrorism-hit Pulwama district in South Kashmir, is also probing the matter.

"A missing complaint was registered and police teams are working on the case," a senior official said.

According to the police in Noida, Sofi had left for Srinagar from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport in the afternoon of October 28 and reached Pulwama a few hours later.

They said his mobile phone details showed that he last spoke to his father, who lives in Srinagar, at 4.30 pm, when his location was traced to Pulwama. However, he had told his father that he was is Delhi and was returning to the university by metro, the police said.