FIA arrests terrorist involved in recruiting people for Islamic State in Karachi

Court handed suspect Saiful Islam to FIA’s custody for two-day physical remand

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday, nabbed a terrorist involved in luring young people for recruitment of the Islamic State.

FIA’s counter-terrorism wing has arrested Imran aka Saiful Islam in an undercover raid in Karachi. Islam has been allegedly facilitating terrorists by using social media to lure youth into joining Islamic State (IS). A variety of suspicious items including a flag of IS, terrorism-inclined literature, internet devices and mobile phones have been recovered from the accused.

Islam was produced before a judicial magistrate where FIA investigators alleged that he used social media to brainwash young people to join militant network of IS. The FIA prosecutor appealed for a 14-day physical remand of the accused citing his involvement in the cybercrime case.



After hearing arguments from both sides, the court handed Islam to FIA’s custody for a two-day physical remand.

Sources within FIA said that the suspect was arrested upon identification from Khalilur Rehman, who is already in custody. Both the suspects have been involved in corrupting, brainwashing and inducting Pakistani youth for IS using social media platforms. Saiful Islam particularly targeted youngsters for which he had been maintaining over fifty pages on Facebook.

This is not the first time that IS elements have been reported in the country. Earlier, Noorul Ain Laghari of Hyderabad’s Liaquat University of Medical Sciences, had reportedly left her home for IS. Laghari was however recovered from home of a hardcore IS militant. The militant, reported to have engineered an attack on the Christian community, was killed in April 2017 after a police encounter.