Mumbai: Seeing her hooded son, Areeb Majeed's mom cries outside court

Suspected ISIS member Areeb Majeed was presented before the special National Investigation Agency NIA court yesterday and his remand in the agencyrsquos custody was extended by 14 days till December 22 At least seven of Areebrsquos family members including his parents cousins and his unclersquos family were waiting outside the court which is near Kala GhodaArif Majeed IllustrationsAmit BandreSince only Areebrsquos father was allowed into the courtroom the rest of the family including his mother managed to catch only a glimpse of him while he was entering the court with his face covered by a hood The family members were crying and calling out Areebrsquos name but they didnrsquot get a chance to even talk to himProceedingsWhen Areeb was presented before NIA judge Y D Shinde he was asked whether he had any grievances or complaints against the NIA officers to which he said noThe NIA Public Prosecutor told the court that ldquoA lot of progress has happened in the investigation and the case diary is ready The accused has also made important disclosures which we have to verify Some data from the service providers has also been collected which needs to be verified by the accusedWe also have to collect further evidence with the help of the accused and investigate his involvement in the terror acts And so we need his custodyrdquo He added ldquoThe accused conspired to commit terrorist acts as he was a part of ISIS The nature of the crime is extremely seriousrdquoDuring the hearing the public prosecutor also filed an application seeking permission to submit some CDs to the court which the judge said couldnrsquot be done till the chargesheet was filed The judge also pointed out that there were spelling errors in the documents produced by the prosecution and asked the NIA to be very specific and careful while filing documents in the court henceforthDefence saysgt Before making submissions advocate Wahab Khan who is representing Areeb asked for permission to speak to him Khan also requested the court to allow Areebrsquos father Dr Ejaz Majeed to be present inside the courtroom for the hearing which was granted Three applications were moved by Khangt The first application said that Areeb is innocent and was falsely implicated in the case As a victim he did not want to make any confessiongt The second application said that if the NIA wanted to conduct any scientific test on Areeb he should be allowed to take legal advice from his lawyer and the test should be conducted only with the permission of the courtgt The third application accused the NIA of briefing the media which led to reports being carried about Areeb every day The advocate said a media trial seemed to be on and the court should restrict the media from holding itBackgroundgtgt Areeb and three other youths from Kalyan town Shaheen Tanki Fahad Shaikh and Aman Tandel had gone to Baghdad on May 23 as part of a group of 22 pilgrims to visit religious shrines in Iraq The next day Areeb had called his family from Baghdad and apologised for having left without informing themgtgt Upon returning to India other pilgrims had told the police that Areeb Fahad Aman and Shaheen had hired a taxi to Fallujah a city west of Baghdad which had emerged as the epicentre of Iraqs deadly insurgencygtgt On August 26 Tanki had called up Areebrsquos family and told them that their son had become a lsquomartyrrsquo and had died fighting for ISIS in Syria