UPDATE: 10.00 a.m. IST —
A senior government official was quoted by the Hindu as saying that the Islamic State group video featuring six Indians was over 10 months old and could have been recorded in August 2015.
"As per our analysis, the video is at least ten months old. We were able to decipher the time line with the help of available online chatter of IS groups of that time. For instance, Bada Sajid's death was shared in the secure chat groups of the IS at least ten months ago. He now features in this video, we are still checking its veracity," a top government official was quoted by the daily as saying.
Bada Sajid has been identified as one of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) members who features in the video. He had been declared dead by Indian agencies in September 2015, the report states. He had fled his house in Delhi minutes before it was raided by the Special Cell of Delhi Police in 2008 as part of the crackdown on IM members.
Another person has been identified as Aman Tandel from Kalyan, Maharashtra. He had left India with Fahad Sheikh and two others saying that he was going on a pilgrimage to Iraq in June 2014, the Hindu reported.
"We have put up teams and they are looking into the old photographs of these suspects to identify them. It's a time consuming process," a senior National Investigation Agency official said.
Original Story —
The Islamic State (ISIS) group has released a new video in which the terrorist outfit claims it is planning to avenge the killing of Muslims in India in the 2002 riots in Gujarat and elsewhere, according to Reuters.
The 22-minute Arabic-language documentary, released online on Friday, is the first that ISIS has produced with a focus on India and South Asia, as reported by the Indian Express. The video features purported Indian jihadists in its ranks and provides interviews with five fugitive jihadists known to have joined fighters in Iraq and Syria since 2014.
In a video monitored by the US Intelligence group SITE, ISIS ridiculed Muslims living peacefully with Hindus who worship cows, sun and trees, and urged them to travel to the Islamic State group-held territories in the "Caliphate," Reuters reported.
The IE reported that Thane engineering student Fahad Tanvir Sheikh, who travelled to Syria in 2014 along with three other men from the city, is the only person who has been identified in the video. He uses the pseudonym Abu Salman al-Hindi, and was quoted by Reuters as saying: "In this land you get to have hatred for the kuffar [disbelievers]. In this land you get to perform jihad. In this land your religion is safe. In this land Allah's Law is the highest. In this land you have nothing that stops you from doing good deeds, from doing da'wah [preaching], from preaching Islam. In this land your life, your honor, your property is protected."
Sheikh was then quoted by the IE as saying that they would return "but with a sword in hand, to avenge the Babri Masjid, and the killings of Muslims in Kashmir, in Gujarat, and in Muzaffarnagar."
Sheikh reportedly also paid homage to Shahim Tanki, his friend from Thane who was killed in Raqqa last year. The third member of the group, Areeb Majid, is currently being prosecuted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
The video also features several unidentified members, suspected to once be a part of the Indian Mujahideen (IM). They reportedly joined ISIS after breaking with the Pakistan-based leadership.
A government source was quoted by the IE as saying that the families of the Thane men and the IM members known to have left for Syria were being contacted to identify the individuals in the video. "The last photographs we have of many of these people we have are from before 2008, when many of them were just adolescents... It's hard to be certain just who is who in the video, though it is possible to make informed guesses", the source was quoted as saying by the daily.
