CBI Officially Winds Up Search for Missing JNU Student Najeeb Ahmad

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation has finally closed the case of missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmad as the agency's efforts to trace him have yielded no results, officials said Monday.

The agency has submitted his report in Patiala House court recently after getting permission of the Delhi high court, they said.

The court is likely to hear the matter on November 29, they said.

While taking permission of the Delhi high court to close the case, the agency which began their probe in May last year had said all aspects were looked into but it could not find any trace of an offence.

Najeeb Ahmad had gone missing from the Mahi-Mandvi hostel of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) here on October 15, 2016, following a scuffle the previous night with some students allegedly affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

Also read: Delhi HC Directs Media to Remove News, Videos Linking JNU Student Najeeb Ahmed to ISIS

The agency had announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for anyone giving information about Najeeb and informed police chiefs of all state police in the country, they said. It also received some inputs from Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi where teams were immediately dispatched but to no avail, the officials said.

The agency had carried out a thorough check on unidentified bodies and pasted Najeeb's photograph on toll stations seeking information about him but these efforts did not result in any positive results, they said. After exhaustive search, the agency has decided to close the case, they added.

Just this month, the Delhi high court on Wednesday asked some media houses to retract from their websites and YouTube certain news reports and videos which allegedly link him to the terrorist organisation ISIS.

Justice J.R. Midha issued the direction on a defamation suit moved by the student’s mother, Fatima Nafees, contending that the news reports and videos are defamatory and seeking an apology as well as Rs 2.2 crore in damages from the media houses.

The Wire had earlier reported on the Times of India article in question, which was carried on the front page of the daily on March 21, 2017. In the story, journalist Raj Shekhar Jha, on the basis of conversations with anonymous “highly placed sources” claimed, Ahmed’s internet browsing history apparently showed that he was looking for information on ISIS’s “ideology, execution and network,” and that his searches included “ways to join ISIS” and similar such queries.

The article, for which the daily drew considerable criticism from civil society and students alike, had further claimed that the conclusions were drawn from a report on Ahmed’s browsing history, which was accessed by the Delhi police.

Soon after the TOI story was published, many television channels picked up the news – including Times Now, which according to the lawsuit ran tickers titled “Najeeb searched for information on ISIS” – without confirming the charges with the Delhi police, whose officials had subsequently denied having accessed any such report on Ahmed’s browsing history.

(With inputs from PTI)

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