Hyderabad: Last week on December 27, the three city-based youth have been arrested at Nagpur airport for allegedly planning to join ISIS, aspired to meet the Kashmiri separatist leader Asiya Andrabi using the name of their late uncle, former chief of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) Syed Salahuddin.

Parents of Syed Omer Farooq Hussaini, 22, one of the three youngsters who were arrested, had tried to keep him away from his radicalised cousins Mohammed Abdullah Basith, 20, and Maaz Hasan Farooq, 22.

Earlier, in September 2014, Abdullah Basith and Maaz Hasan Farooq made an attempt to go to Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Palestine via Bangladesh, along with two others Abrar and Noman. However, police foiled their attempt at Kolkata and brought them back to Hyderabad, and counselled them in the presence of their parents and let them off.

“Police brought back Basith and Maaz from Kolkata last September. We wanted to cut off all ties with them but we are relatives and met at family functions, marriages and festivals. My son had mocked Basith and Maaz when they were detained last year and let off after counselling. He had told them that they were misguided. But they eventually radicalised him,” said Omer’s father Syed Azizullah Hussaini.

“Despite keeping a tab on his activities at home, we could not know what he did when he was out. On December 24, two days before he left home with Basith and Maaz, his BSc (Microbiology) supplementary exams results were announced and he had failed, again. He had failed to clear the final exam last June and had appeared for supplementary exams in October. He did not tell us about the result. He knew I would be angry and this was another reason he fled. I think Basith and Maaz started brainwashing him after he failed last year,’’ he added.

The three youths have been booked under IPC sections 121 (waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the government), 121-A (conspiracy to wage war against the government), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and under relevant sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Basith had planned the trip and stolen Rs 90,000 from his father’s locker. Before leaving Hyderabad, Basithh wrote a letter addressed to his parents about his plan and left it in the house. He also confessed that he downloaded Jihadi materials through the internet in his tab and the same was deleted by him due to fear of law enforcing agency and left the tab at his house, the FIR says.

“They thought that once they reached Srinagar, they would approach any militant organisation who would take them to PoK and from there to Afghanistan and further,’’ the official said.

The Special Investigation Team of Central Crime Station has sought four days’ remand of the three youths who are now in judicial custody.