Ehtisham Bilal, a missing Kashmiri student from Sharda University in UP's Noida, has joined the Islamic State (IS). The incident came to light on Friday after Bilal showed up in a photograph on social media, as was feared by the police, with a gun and an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State.
Bilal, 20, a resident of downtown Srinagar had been missing for some days. His family had made frantic appeals to him to return and also sought police help to get him back.
It is to be noted that, on October 4, Bilal was beaten up by some students at Sharda University where he was pursuing BTech, for “looking like an Afghan resident”.
His father Bilal Ahmad Sofi and mother Irfana had staged a sit-in at Press Enclave in Srinagar on Thursday after their son went incommunicado from October 28 evening. The couple also appealed to the governor to trace their missing son.
On Friday, Bilal's photo appeared on social media in which he was shown wearing a black turban and a ‘pathan’ suit along with a pouch strapped to his chest with the IS flag in the background.
A few minutes on, a six-minute audio clip of Bilal, also started doing rounds on the social media in which he said: “I (Ehtisham Bilal) feel blessed after joining Jundul Khilafah led by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. I have taken a pledge that I will not rest till Islamic rule in Kashmir is established.”
Munir Khan, ADGP (law and order/security) of Jammu and Kashmir, told a local daily that preliminary investigations had suggested that Bilal had “made up his mind to join militancy.” “We are aware of Ehtisham's (Bilal) photograph wearing an ammunition pouch on his chest. There is no footing of the Islamic State in Jammu and Kashmir,” Khan said. “We will ascertain the veracity of the audio clip and the photograph in circulation on social media.”
After Bilal's photo joining the Islamic State became public, his parents Softi and Irfana were admitted to SMHS hospital in Srinagar for depression. Last year, another young engineering student Eisa Fazili of Srinagar's 90 feet locality had joined the Islamic State. He was
killed after the police blamed him for the killing of a police constable at Soura in Srinagar. After his killing, the Islamic State on its official website has mentioned him as its 'mujahid' in Kashmir.
Before him, Mugees Mir, a married man from HMT in Srinagar had joined the Islamic State affiliate in Kashmir led by Zakir Musa, a former Hizbul Mujahideen commander and aide of Burhan Wani. He was killed in a brief shootout at Zakoora in November 2017. The Islamic State had claimed Mir also as their member in a statement on their official website.
Prior to that, a few militants, who had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State in Kashmir like Syed Ovais of Kokernag in Anantnag and Muhammad Toufeeq, a resident of Telangana, were killed in an encounter in Hakoora village in south Kashmir on March 12.
However, the Islamic State has failed to evoke a good response in Kashmir largely because militant groups fighting in the state are not working or don't have a pan-Islamist agenda. It is an established fact that the militant groups in Kashmir are supplementing a separatist cause, which is essentially political in nature represented by the Hurriyat Conference and other groups.
