NEW DELHI: The Islamic State has released a new 22-minute Arabic-language documentary on purported Indian jihadists in its ranks, providing the first interviews with five fugitive jihadists known to have joined the ranks of fighters in Iraq and Syria since 2014.
The video, released online on Friday, is the first propaganda the Islamic State has produced with content focused on India and South Asia.
Thane engineering student Fahad Tanvir Sheikh who travelled to Syria in 2014 along with three other men from the city, as first reported in The Indian Express, is the only individual conclusively identified in the video, in which he uses the pseudonym Abu Amr’ al-Hindi.
“We will return,” Sheikh vows, “but with a sword in hand, to avenge the Babri Masjid, and the killings of Muslims in Kashmir, in Gujarat, and in Muzaffarnagar.”
Sheikh also pays homage to his friend from Thane, Shahim Tanki, who is said to have been killed in a bomb attack in Raqqa last year.
The third member of the group, Areeb Majid, is now being prosecuted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
The video also features several still-to-be-identified members, suspected to be once of the Indian Mujahideen, whose members are known to have been serving with Islamic State forces after breaking with their Pakistan-based leadership.
