Probe underway on tracing four missing youths, says Maharashtra Home Minister R. R. Patil

Maharashtra Home Minister R. R. Patil on Wednesday maintained that the investigation is currently underway on the issue of tracing four missing youths from the state who have reportedly travelled to Iraq to join militant group called ISIS.

"The parents of those four youth missing have lodged complaint. Police investigation is going on. We have even shared information with central agency. They will also investigate the matter," Patil said.

The police in Maharashtra are probing the four separate missing complaints filed by the parents of the youth, identified as Arif Fayyaz Majeed, Aman Naik Tandel, Shaheed Farooqui Tanki and Fahad Tanvir Sheikh.

All are educated, are in their mid-20s and cited various reasons, including employment options, for going to Iraq before their families lost all contact with them.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been displaced in the fighting between the government troops and Sunni militants that broke out on June 10.

Sunni militant outfit, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ( ISIS), now called Islamic State (IS) declared last month that it is establishing a new caliphate, or an Islamic state, on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria.