Yazdani tried Turkey university route for entry into Syria

New Delhi: The head of Islamic State's (IS) Hyderabad module Mohammad Ibrahim Yazdani, arrested last week along with four others for planning attacks, had applied to Istanbul's Aydin University for a masters in electricals and electronics engineering in September 2015. He had applied for the course as part of his plan to take his wife, his brother Ilyas Yazdani and one-year-old child to Syria along with him to fight for the IS.
"Yazdani was desperate to go to Syria. He applied for a Greek visa thrice but his requests were rejected. He then decided that he would enter Syria through Turkey and enrolled for this course. After he was selected, he realised he didn't have the money to pay the private university and dropped the plan," said a source.
Probing the Hyderabad module, which was planning deadly attacks on police stations, the NIA found that the group had fled from the city in May for two days fearing capture of one of their accomplices.
"In the middle of May, they learnt that one of the IS members they were in touch with in some other part of India was caught by agencies. They left their mobile phones at home, bought two new phones and SIM cards and went to a mosque in Chincholi in Maharashtra, about 220 km from Hyderabad. They stayed there for two days and after finding out that their contact was not arrested, came back to their homes and continued planning the attacks," said a top source.
The arrested IS members were supposed to carry out coordinated blasts on police stations in Hyderabad, religious places and VIPs. Interestingly, their Syria-based handler, suspected to be Yousuf Al Hindi (Shafi Armar), had asked them to identify a place where they could hide after the blasts, said sources in NIA.