"We could not say anything to our son when we met him in court. What do we tell you?" said Gulzar Ahmed, father of Zaid and Zubair Malik, who are among the 10 people arrested on suspicion of being members of an ISIS-inspired group allegedly planning suicide attacks in Delhi and other parts of north India.
Ahmed, sitting inside the chamber of his sons' lawyer at the Patiala House court on Thursday, refused to talk anymore to reporters scrambling to get his byte.
"We don't know what or how it happened. Yesterday, these people came, asked women to assemble in one room, picked them up. However, they did not misbehave with us," a relative accompanying Ahmed said, explaining the circumstances under which Zaid and Zubair were arrested by NIA on Wednesday.
"We know as much as you know through the news. We could not say anything to them (the investigators) as we are working people," the relative added.
Relatives of other people arrested in connection with the terror plot also seemed clueless why their loved ones were being treated as "terrorists".
They said there was an atmosphere of fear in their locality in Zafarabad in Delhi.
A neighbour of Anas Yunus, a civil engineering student arrested on Wednesday, accompanied his family to the court. He said, "We were woken up around 5 am due to the commotion in the locality as hundreds of men marched through the area. Their vehicles had been parked on the main road. After the raids, our children are scared whether they will also be arrested like this. Ek darr ka mahaul hai."
His uncle said, "We could just see him for seconds inside the courtroom. Through hand gestures we asked him if he was fine; he signalled us in affirmation."
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content