SRINAGAR: A Kashmiri youth, who had gone missing in October this year from a university in Uttar Pradesh and reportedly joined militant group Islamic State J&K (ISJK), returned home on Sunday.
Ehtisham Bilal Sofi, 17, who had gone missing from Sharda University in Greater Noida on October 28 and subsequently joined ISJK by pledging his allegiance to IS chief Abu Bakar Al Baghdadi, returned to his home at Khanyar in downtown Srinagar today.
Immediately after his return to home, a police contingent reached there and whisked him away.
"There were some efforts from his family and our side and these efforts bore fruit and he returned to family," DIG of police central Kashmir, B K Virdi told The New Indian Express.
He said the police officials are talking to him.
Sources said police officials are quizzing Ehtisham to know what prompted him to join militancy and how he got in touch with militants of IS-inspired ideology in the State and where he released a video in which he was holding an AK-47 rifle and audio message pledging allegiance to IS chief.
The boy's father said he had returned home bleeding and was taken away by police.
Before going missing from university and joining militancy, Ehtisham was assaulted by a group of students in the varsity campus at Greater Noida during a clash between students of India and Afghanistan.
After he had gone missing and his picture with AK-47 rifle went viral, his family members and relatives made repeated appeals to him to return home and also asked militants to allow him to return to his family as he was their only son.
In November last year, a young footballer Majid Khan hailing from south Kashmir gave up militancy and returned home after compassionate appeals from mother. He had joined Lashkar-e-Taiba.
About a dozen more youngsters have returned to their homes and given up militancy on pleas of their family members.