Mannan Wani's photograph on Facebook | Photo Credit: Facebook

New Delhi: Mannan Wani, a research scholar at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was on Monday suspended from college after a photograph of him with a weapon went viral on social media.

Wani, a research scholar from Jammu and Kashmir has posted a photograph holding an assault rifle, triggering speculations that he may have joined militant groups.

Mannan Wani, a research scholar at AMU, suspended from college after a video of him with weapon went viral on social media, #Aligarh SSP Rajesh Pandey says 'there are reports of him joining Hizbul Mujahideen, can't reveal anything before verification' pic.twitter.com/LjEK636DBz — ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 8, 2018

Aligarh SSP Rajesh Pandey said, "There are reports of him joining Hizbul Mujahideen, can't reveal anything before verification."

Wani, reportedly went missing from his home in Lolab, Kupwara last week.

On January 5, a photograph of him holding an assault rifle with an under barrel grenade launcher appeared on Facebook along with text saying he had joined Hizbul Mujahideen and that he was given code name: Hamzah Bhai.

Also read: Number of Kashmiri youth joining militancy reduced in 2017: J&K DGP

According to reports in local media, Wani is pursuing PhD in Applied Geology from Aligarh Muslim University.

“We have also seen the picture on social networking sites. But we have no idea (whether he has joined militants or not). We lost contact with him on January 4 as his phone was switched off.

We thought he had switched it off for some reason or lost it.

As we couldn’t contact him, we lodged a missing report with police on Saturday.” Mannan Wani's brother Mubashir Ahmad was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

The AMU website in a news article dated September 19, 2016, says that "Mannan Bashir Wani, Research Scholar at Department of Geology, Aligarh Muslim University" was awarded the 'Best Paper Presentation Award' in an International Conference on 'Water, Environment, Energy and Society' (ICWEES) held at AISECT University, Bhopal.

The award was conferred to Wani for his paper 'Flood Risk Assessment of Lolab Valley from Watershed Analysis Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques'- the website said along with Wani's photograph- says AMU website.

