Srinagar: Three weeks after a 22-year-old student from Kashmir studying at a private college in Dehradun went missing, Jammu and Kashmir Police has said that he has joined militancy.

Family members of the student – Shoaib Mohammad Lone, from Bumrath village in southern Kashmir’s Kulgam district – said that he has not returned despite an appeal from his mother, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

Shoaib was studying BSc (IT) at Alpine Institute of Management and Technology in Dehradun..

Abdul Khaliq Lone, uncle of Shoaib said that he did not get home and they found his cellphone switched off after he called home on September 20. The family, he said, lodged a missing complaint after failing to contact him.

On Tuesday, Kulgam’s Superintendent of Police Harmeet Singh told The Indian Express, “We received a missing report from the family. We have information that he joined the Hizbul Mujahideen around eight days ago.”

A video of Shoaib’s mother appealing him to return had gone viral on social media recently. In the video, she says that if Shoaib is “with any tanzeem (outfit)”, he should be “sent home”. The video shows her saying, “I will consume poison if he does not return. I have no one else other than him (Shoaib).”

A photo of Shoaib carrying an automatic rifle has been circulated widely on social media.

His uncle Abdul Khaliq said, “Shoaib was home for more than a month before he left for college on September 12. He last called home on September 20 and spoke to his mother, who was unwell. We were not aware that he had left college for Kashmir the same day.”

He said Shoaib’s father, a militant, died in 1995.