While Riyaz allegedly attacked the tailor with a sharp-edged weapon, his aide recorded the crime on his cellphone, police said. (Pic: News18)

Riyaz Attari, who allegedly beheaded a tailor in Rajasthan’s Udaipur city on Tuesday, is associated with ISIS, sources told CNN-News18. Attari was in contact on three occasions in 2021 with one Mujeeb Abbasi, a resident of the state’s Tonk town, they added. Mujeeb, said the sources, was picked up from Rajasthan in a recently busted ISIS case.

Some individuals from Ratlam were arrested in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in connection with the case, they said.

According to the sources, Riyaz could even be an ISIS operative himself, as in his Facebook photos he can be seen using the typical finger signal used by Islamic State operatives across the world.

Riyaz is Barelvi, the sources said, and associated with the Pakistan-based extremist religious group Dawat-e-Islami from Atar and that is why he writes ‘Attari’ as his last name.

“We are investigating if he is a lone wolf,” said the sources.

Intelligence agencies are focussing on the possible involvement of certain outfits to fuel tension and also to see if instructions came from abroad.

Riyaz and an associate had reached the victim Kanhaiya Lal’s shop on the pretext of giving measurements for stitching clothes.

While Riyaz allegedly attacked the tailor with a sharp-edged weapon, his aide recorded the crime on his cellphone, police said.

The duo then posted a video of themselves on social media, confessing to the killing and making threats on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s life.

According to the victim’s relatives, the man had written on social media in support of former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma—who recently made some controversial comments about Prophet Muhammad— about 10 days ago and had been receiving threats ever since.