They pledged their allegiance to the man they believe to be the leader of all the Muslim believers. Then they plotted jihad mass murder.

“Nabbed ISIS suspects from Hyderabad vowed to serve Baghdadi: NIA,” by Jitendra Bahadur Singh, India Today, July 4, 2016:

Investigators probing the suspected Hyderabad module of the ISIS have discovered that the five men arrested for their alleged links with terror group had pledged allegiance to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, NIA sources told India Today.

THE BAYA’H

After having met four-five times, the suspects wrote their pledge and delivered it to their handler Shafi Armar, top sources in the investigating agency said. In Islamic terminology, such oath is called Bay’ah, they explained. The alleged leader of the five arrested people, Ibrahim Yazdani, got his men sign a Bay’ah for Baghdadi, scanned it and emailed it to his handler in Syria, according to NIA officers.

Investigators have gathered sufficient evidence of the pledge, sources said. Their Bay’ah meant they were now supposed to follow Baghdadi’s orders without questioning, officers added. Yazdani allegedly wanted to travel to Syria with his wife, son and brother Iliyas. He was planning to enter Syria via Turkey and Greece, investigators say.

THE PLAN

During interrogation, Yazdani revealed he had sold off his wife’s jewellery to buy weapons from Ajmer but, was not able to procure the firearms. Earlier, he had twice visited Saudi Arabia, where he met a Jordanian, which the NIA later identified as Sohaib al Abudi. Yazdani joined the ISIS after meeting Abudi.

In his questioning, Fahad, another arrested suspect, told the NIA that he had placed an online order for an airgun, the officers said. But all of them were arrested before it was delivered. The NIA is also investigating some 500 calls that the suspects had allegedly made to Gulf countries.

According to investigators, Yazdani had drawn maps of a Hyderabad police station he had planned to strike. Yazdani used secured messaging apps for communication with other suspects and his handlers, the NIA found.