A 50-year-old man from Mumbai, who had declared on social media that he wants to give up his Indian citizenship and become an official spokesperson for the Islamic State (IS), was on Friday detained by the Delhi Police from the embassy of Iraq.
Sources said officials at the embassy found the behaviour of the man, identified as Zuber Ahmed Khan, suspicious they contacted the police.
"He went to the embassy to apply for a working visa but was detained after the embassy found his behaviour odd. The officials informed us that they got suspicious about the man during a conversation with him," sources said.
Police have detained Khan on grounds of suspicion and is currently questioning him at the Vasant Vihar police station in south Delhi. Khan told the police he wanted to go to Iraq for a job but is reportedly changing his statements frequently.
While Khan claims to be a journalist from Navi Mumbai on his Facebook profile, police said he worked as a lecturer in Maharashtra and had lost his job in 2007.
Khan had addressed his post on Facebook to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and expressed his desire to become an official spokesperson for the west Asian terrorist group that has declared caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria. He had also written that he is a sympathiser of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon and made several posts before and after Memon's execution on July 30 in which he called him a martyr.
{{/usCountry}}Khan had addressed his post on Facebook to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and expressed his desire to become an official spokesperson for the west Asian terrorist group that has declared caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria. He had also written that he is a sympathiser of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon and made several posts before and after Memon's execution on July 30 in which he called him a martyr.
{{/usCountry}}In a post on August 1, he said he would reach Delhi by the Rajdhani Express on August 4 and visit the embassy of Iraq to express his desire to be an IS spokesperson. He also wrote that he would visit the Pakistani embassy to expedite his visa request.
On Thursday, a Mumbai Police source said that Khan was traced to Bandra, where crime branch officials went to arrest him on Tuesday afternoon. He managed to evade the police.