Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and family have landed in Moscow and have been granted asylum, Russia state media reported today, hours after Islamist-led rebels took control of his country.

“Assad and members of his family have arrived in Moscow,” a Kremlin source told the TASS and Ria Novosti news agencies. “Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds,” he added.

There was buzz on social media with flight trackers speculating the mysterious whereabouts of Assad for most part of Sunday.

A Syrian Air plane took off from Damascus airport around the time the capital was taken by rebels, according to data from the Flightradar website.

The aircraft initially flew towards Syria’s coastal region, a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, but then made an abrupt U-turn and flew in the opposite direction for a few minutes before disappearing off the map.

The sudden change in course and disappearance of the plane from tracking could indicate it had been shot down, or that it had switched off its transponder.

With Assad and family in Russia now, it is clear the plane had switched off its transponder.

Assad’s departure comes less than two weeks after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group challenged more than five decades of the Assad family rule with a lightning offensive.

“After 50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement… we announce today the end of this dark period and the start of a new era for Syria,” the rebel factions said on Telegram.

The Islamist leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, visited the capital Damascus’s landmark Umayyad Mosque, as crowds greeted him with smiles and embraces. HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, HTS has sought to soften its image in recent years.

A man who forced many young men from India to commit cyber crimes through fake call centres on the promise of getting them jobs abroad has been arrested from Hyderabad by the Delhi Police yesterday after a 2,500-km chase.

Kamran Haider alias Zaidi carried a reward of Rs 2 lakh on information leading to his arrest, declared by the National Investigation Agency.

Zaidi and his accomplices used to traffic vulnerable young Indian men to the Golden Triangle Region in Southeast Asia, where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet, and force them to work in Chinese companies. Their passports would be taken away as soon as these men reached abroad and they would be forced into cyber crimes.

According to the Delhi Police, Zaidi was constantly changing his location and the police had deployed teams in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to catch him.

After manual inputs and technical surveillance, Zaidi’s location was finally traced to Hyderabad. “He was arrested after a long persevering chase of 2,500 kilometres by the team without any rest near Nampally Railway Station in Hyderabad while he was trying to escape another hideout,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Manoj C said.

The scam came to light after a First Information Report (FIR) was registered in New Friends Colony in Delhi on the complaint of a person named Naresh Lakhwat on May 27. He had told the police that he was looking for a job when he came across a consultancy firm called Ali Internation Service.

He got job offers from Thailand and Laos through the firm. The company eventually sent him to Thailand where his passport was snatched and he was forced to work in a Chinese firm.

The Chinese company used to scan Indians online, Mr Lakhwat told police. The case was later transferred to the National Investigative Agency (NIA).

An investigation by the NIA exposed the entire module and it was revealed that the young men were sent to the Golden Triangle where they were forced to dupe Indian, European and American citizens online.

The probe revealed that Manzoor Alam alias Guddu, Sahil, Ashish alias Akhil, Pawan Yadav alias Afzal and their leader Zaidi were involved in the human trafficking.

The investigation also revealed that the people sent from India to foreign countries for jobs were treated poorly. The traffickers also used to extort money through cryptocurrency from those who tried to escape their net.

Bashar al-Assad and his family have found asylum in Moscow after fleeing Damascus as Islamist-led opposition forces took control of the Syrian capital. Celebrations erupted in Syria following the rebels’ swift advance, ending the Assad family’s five-decade rule.