The Hyderabad Police have said that three students who were arrested last week for allegedly planning to join Isis had "decided" to meet separatist leader Asiya Andrabi's help to seek help to enter Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The youths, who were arrested on 26 December, reportedly confessed to having made plans to travel to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine via Kashmir, where they had planned to seek Andrabi's assistance to cross the border, PTI reported.

Andrabi is the chairman and founder of Dukhtaran-e-Millat, a group belonging to All Parties Hurriyat Conference in Kashmir. The group campaigns for the separation of Kashmir from India.

"The trio confessed to have jihadi ideology and in this regard they entered into criminal conspiracy and tried to go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine via Kashmir for furtherance of unlawful activities and in order to join hands with jihadi forces of ISIS/ISIL to wage war against states (India or elsewhere)," PTI quoted a senior officer of Special Investigation Team, which is probing the case, as saying.

A joint team of Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Telangana Police arrested the students from Nagpur's Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport from where they were scheduled to board a flight to Srinagar.

The Hyderabad Police on Monday produced the trio in a local court that sent them to 14-day judicial custody. They have been booked on charges under sections of IPC 121 (of waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the government), 121-A (conspiracy to wage war against government), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), and also under relevant sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The youths, identified as Mohd Abdulla Basith, Syed Omer Farooq Hussaini and Maaz Hasan Farooq, are cousins, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crimes and SIT) T Prabhakar Rao told PTI.

They were residents of Humayun Nagar Gulshan Iqbal Colony in Hyderabad.

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