Bengaluru youth, who helped many join ISIS, killed in Syria: Report

Faiz Masood, a business management graduate belonging to a wealthy family from Bengaluru, has been missing for nearly seven years. He was suspected to have joined the Islamic State and now has been killed in Syria, reports Indian Express, citing sources.

Among the Bengaluru youths who travelled to Syria in 2013 and 2014 to join ISIS, is Abdur Rahman, an opthalmologist, who confirmed the death of Masood. Rahman was arrested by NIA in connection with an Islamic State Khorasan Province case.

Probes have revealed that Masood was a key contact in Syria for those from Bengaluru who wanted to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq, said the report. Masood is learnt to have left behind his parents, wife and two young children to join the terror outfit.

NIA, other central and state agencies who questioned Rahman and a fellow doctor, also from Bengaluru have uncovered that the two of them had met Faiz Masood at Atme, a Syrian border town when they crossed over from a Turkey refugee camp towards the end of 2013.

Masood was reportedly killed in an attack on a camp. Both Rahman and the other fellow doctor were 22-year-old medical students at the time. The two returned to India within a few days of making it to Syria seeking financial help from their parents and went on to become doctors, said the report.

Another person, a 24-year-old aeronautical engineer told investigators that he had sought help from Masood to join ISIS. He later suffered an injury to his arm and returned to India soon after. He, however, stayed in Syria for much longer than the two doctors, revealed the report.