preacher Mohammed Haneef

MUMBAI: Twenty-six-year-old Ashfaque Ahmed’s family had no inkling before he, his wife, infant daughter and cousins Mohammed Siraj (22), a businessman, and Ejaz Rehman (30), a medical practitioner, left the country to join the Islamic State (IS) in June.“This is shocking. Four members of an extended family were inclined to join the banned outfit. We are questioning, now in crime branch custody, about his role in instigating Ashfaque and others to join IS,” said a crime branch officer.In the last week of June, Ashfaque’s youngest brother received a message on his mobile from him, saying he had migrated to IS territory and did not want to come back. “Take care of mother and father,” read the last line.His father, Abdul Majeed, filed an FIR on August 6 naming Haneef, Abdur Rasheed, a Kerala school teacher who travelled to Syria with Ashfaque, Navi Mumbai resident Arshi Qureshi and Kalyan resident Rizwan Khan as the ones who “instigated his son to join IS.”In the FIR, Majeed stated he belongs to the Barveli sect of Muslims. “However, my son was inclined towards the Ahl-e-Hadees sect and converted to it in 2014. He got married in April 2014. Ashfaque informed us about his marriage later,” said Majeed, 60, who owns several guest houses in Mumbai.Majeed has two sons and a daughter; Ashfaque is the eldest. It is still not clear if Ashfaque took his wife out of India forcibly or if she went with him on her own. But in March-April this year, Ashfaque and his wife went to Sri Lanka for religious education.In 2014, there were visible changes in Ashfaque, Majeed told police. “He stopped listening to music, watching television, changed his clothing style and started sporting a beard. The drastic changes and the people he met had the family worried,” Majeed said. Ashfaque would mostly be in the company of his cousins, Rehman and Siraj, and no one doubted their conversations.While Majeed blamed Haneef for “brainwashing” his son, the Mumbai crime branch has not yet found clinching evidence to establish that Haneef sent Ashfaque out of the country.