New Delhi:

A special National Investigation Agency court in Delhi on Friday sentenced an ISIS terrorist to seven years of rigorous imprisonment for conspiring to establish the proscribed organisation’s base in India by radicalising and recruiting youths through social media platforms. Imran Khan Pathan was convicted by the NIA Special Court, Patiala House.

He has been awarded the sentence in a case registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in December 2015 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Penal Code.

The case pertains to a “larger criminal conspiracy hatched by the ISIS to establish its base in India by radicalising and recruiting Muslim youths through different social media platforms”, an NIA official said.

As a result, radicalised youths expressed their solidarity, allegiance and support to the ISIS and left India to join the terrorist organisation, the official said.

The NIA had filed a charge-sheet and then supplementary charge-sheets against 17 accused, including Pathan.

Earlier, the court had convicted and sentenced 16 of the 17 accused to up to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for a conspiracy hatched by ISIS handlers based in Syria and subsequent formation of a group “Junood-ul-Khilafa-fil-Hind” which owed its allegiance to the ISIS.

Pathan was in direct touch with ISIS handler Yusuf-Al-Hindi. He had also received funds to the tune of Rs 50,000 from one of Yusuf’s associates Mudabbir Mushtaq Sheikh, who was convicted for making an improvised explosive device and to further the activities of the ISIS in India, the official said.

With this judgment, all 17 charge-sheeted accused involved in the case stand convicted by the special court.