A young woman hailing from Maharashtra’s Pune was de-radicalised twice by the Indian intelligence agencies but she still went back to the Islamic State (IS), said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in its chargesheet.
According to the NIA, Sadiya Anwar Shaikh, a resident of Yerwada in Pune, was de-radicalised when she was a minor back in 2015 and then again in 2018.
Shaikh was arrested in July in a conspiracy pertaining to the IS after the efforts to de-radicalise her failed. The NIA filed the chargesheet against her in September.
She had come under the radar of the NIA in 2015 when she was just 15 years old. She was noticed for her radical content on social media platforms. Islamic preacher Dr Zakir Naik is one of her inspirations, said the agency in the chargesheet.
She was de-radicalised in 2015 by Pune ATS and let off later. However, she again started radical activities on social media. Later in 2018, she was de-radicalised by the Jammu and Kashmir Police and was handed over to her mother after the process.
The investigation agency has said in its chargesheet that the woman has been in touch with agents of various terror groups like the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), Islamic State in Jammu and Kashmir (ISJK), al Qaeda, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGH) in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, among other countries, since 2015.
She was also in touch with a key IS “online motivator” from the Philippines, Karen Aisha Hamidon, who radicalised several Indian youngsters. NIA officials even travelled to Manila in April 2018 and questioned Hamidon.
