HYDERABAD: Hyderabad Senior Superintendent of Police Irfan Ali Baloch has said that Naureen Leghari, the second year student of MBBS at Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) who had mysteriously disappeared and was arrested two months later on Friday night in a raid on a militant hideout in Lahore, had divulged to her childhood friend that she had links with the militant Islamic State group.

She told her about 10 days before leaving Hyderabad on Feb 10 that she had links with IS and wanted to “join jihad,” said the SSP quoting the girl.

“I can’t share her friend’s name because she may have come under pressure now,” Mr Baloch told Dawn on Monday.

Naureen’s friends and teachers at her college and the university disclosed to police that she used to discuss ‘jihad’ with them. “She used to draw their attention to the situation in Syria and Afghanistan and urged them that ‘we must participate in jihad,” he said.

He said that he had disclosed to Naureen’s father, Prof Abdul Jabbar Leghari, that his daughter harboured extremist tendencies but he rejected it vehemently.

“She used a different name to book a seat on an inter-city bus at its terminal in Latifabad on Feb 9 but gave her own mobile phone number. She boarded the bus to Lahore on Feb 10,” he said.

“Mr Jabbar was aware of his daughter’s case but did not want to admit it,” claimed the officer.

Mr Jabbar who lodged a case of his daughter’s kidnapping at Hussainabad police station confirmed at a press conference on March 26 that his daughter’s ID on Instagram had been blocked in 2014-15 after she forwarded some messages about atrocities against Palestinian Muslims.

Mr Jabbar has not been available to media since the news about his daughter’s arrest hit headlines.

Hyderabad range DIG Khadim Rind disclosed that when Mr Jabbar came to meet him along with a leader of Sindh University Teachers’ Association, he asked him why his daughter’s ID had been blocked by the website but he had no answer.

He said that he deputed ASP Zahida Parveen to make inquiries from Jabbar’s family about the ID and the ASP found it pertained to some websites dealing with religious extremism.

Naureen not radicalised in LUMHS, says VC

LUMHS Vice Chancellor Prof Noshad A. Shaikh has said in answer to journalists’ queries about IS-linked Naureen that no one has radicalised her in the university.

He told media persons at his office on Monday that Naureen’s teachers and classmates never noticed any extremist tendencies in her. He had made inquiries on his level after Naureen’s disappearance to know if any individual or group was busy spreading religious extremism among students but found no such elements, he said.

He said that she was an average student who regularly attended her classes and was often found to be reclusive. She used to tell her friends to avoid mixing with boys but never hinted she would join ‘jihad’, he said.

He said that it was more probable she had developed some links (with radicals) outside the university through the Internet.

But because of that he could not put curbs on social media which was a great help to students nowadays, he said.

Mr Shaikh said that teachers, deans and staff had been asked to keep their eyes open from now onwards. However, it was impossible for any university to check every single student and what she or he was wearing, he said, adding students’ activities outside the university were beyond their control.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2017