Hyderabad: City student A.M. Azhar, who was grilled by the National Investigation Agency, is shaken, as are his family members.
Azhar, 20, had just gone to bed after taking sehri on Wednesday when a group of NIA officials along with local police raided his house. He was asked to accompany them for an “inquiry”. After interrogating him for hours regarding his “ISIS connections”, he was released on Wednesday midnight as the NIA officials did not find any evidence against him.
Azhar was one of the six who were let off by the NIA after it became clear that they were not related to the five arrested ISIS men.
Azhar and his family feel that he was unnecessarily dragged into the case, which has left him stigmatised. Azhar says he was “mistakenly” picked up by NIA officials, who suspected him to be a part of the ISIS module because he used to go to the same mosque the suspects visited. This is what the family members of the others who were let off also said.
Azhar shaken after NIA quiz
“They searched my house and later questioned me about my connections with the five arrested people. I have only seen these people at a local mosque I frequent. I was not friends with them. I do not know them personally,” said Azhar.
The mosque Azhar visited is Muhammadi Masjid near the Bibi Bazaar Crossroads, where the intelligence officials apparently photographed him as part of intelligence gathering.
“It seems that he was photographed by Intellig-ence officials while he was parking his bike. He was seen by teh side one of the arrested people. We think that is how Azhar was marked by the NIA,” said his uncle Faheem Khan.
A BCom third-year student in a city college, Azhar said that NIA officials thoroughly examined his phone contacts and other details about him, but found nothing suspicious.
“They behaved with me very politely. I think they could not find anything suspicious from me,” he said. Talking about the arrested ISIS men, Azhar said that he had no idea aware that they were such kind of people.
