Srinagar, Dec 2 (GNS): Ahtisham Bilal, a student of Sharda University in Uttar Pradesh’s Greater Noida, who had joined militant ranks following an assaulted during campus violence in October this year, was detained by police on Sunday.
Ahtisham Bilal, according to family sources, was detained from his home at Khanyar locality in the downtown Srinagar on Sunday afternoon.
A police officer told GNS that the youth was brought back into the mainstream with the help of his family.
“We neither arrested nor detained him. We have only taken him to the hospital for medical check-up as the youth was ill,” said the officer who wished not to be named.
Even police tweeted, without naming him that the youth was brought back into the mainstream with the help of the family and “more details would be shared later.”
On October 4, Ahtisham was injured when a mob assaulted Afghani students at Sharda University. On October 28, he disappeared after leaving the campus for New Delhi.
In the first week of November, a picture of Ahtisham, dressed in black and a grenade vest strapped around his chest with Islamic State’s black banner in the backdrop, appeared on the social media.
Ahtisham was studying for a Bachelor’s in radiography at the varsity before joint the militant ranks. As per the police investigation, Ahtisham was a friend of Faid Mushtaq Waza, the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant who was killed in a gunfight with the government forces in Srinagar recently.
His family, however, had denied that Ahtisham was friends with Waza. “Faid Mushtaq Waza was from another mohalla and used to offer prayers in our mosque. There was no friendship between the two,” said Ahtisham’s relative. (GNS)
