Investigating and Intelligence agencies are reportedly unwilling to confirm reports on the death of several Keralite Islamic State (ISIS) recruits in Afghanistan and Syria in the absence of corroborating information and the mystery surrounding many of the messages received by relatives regarding
such incidents.
As per messages received since February this year, at least 15 Keralite ISIS recruits had been killed in Afghanistan and Syria but agencies seem to be skeptical about the veracity of such information and suspect that many of these messages could have been part of a plan of the terror group to create confusion about their operations and thus mislead investigators.
The agencies have reportedly not been able to collect enough Intelligence data so far to confirm or deny reports on such deaths except the messages relayed by other recruits through mobile applications like Telegram and WhatsApp from the ISIS camps in Afghanistan and Syria to which they were presumably attached.
The first such message was received in February by the relatives of TK Hafeezuddin from Kasaragod, one of the 21 persons who had gone missing from the country in May-June, 2016 and were feared to have joined the ISIS in Afghanistan.
There were five women and three children among them, 17 of whom were from Kasaragod district and four from Palakkad.
Relatives and social workers in Kerala have since then received similar messages about the death of three more persons of that group. As per reports, they were killed in attacks on ISIS camps by US forces in Nangarhar in Afghanistan.
later, a WhatsApp forum of the terror group itself had reported on the death of five Keralites.
“We don’t know what to believe or not. Contradicting reports are coming out frequently,” said a friend of one of the young men missing from Thrikkarippur. “Most of the families of these people don’t want to talk about this. It seems that the police also have not given them any clear picture,” he said.
Suspicions about the veracity of reports on the death of ISIS recruits strengthened after relatives of Shajil (36) from Chakkarakkallu in Kannur received a message earlier this month that he had been killed in an attack in Syria. The message was said to have been sent by his wife Farzana who had gone to Syria with him.
The Kerala Police’s Intelligence wing, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the NIA are now in the process of carrying out a thorough probe on the basis of their inference – which they drew mainly from the responses of his relatives and friends – that Shajil might not have been killed and that Farzana’s message was misleading.
As per reports, Shajil, formerly an active worker of Islamist outfit Popular Front of India, and his wife had left the country about six months ago and their objective was said to be to join the global terror force. However, relatives had mysteriously failed to lodge a complaint with the police about their disappearance.
Also, the local police had reported that the relatives had not shown any signs of alarm or anxiety even after ‘learning’ that Farzana also had reached Syria and receiving the message on Shajil’s alleged death. The agencies suspect that there has been an effort to mislead the investigators but it is not clear what purpose such attempts could exactly serve.
“The fact is that there is no clear information,” said a source in the Kerala Police’s Intelligence wing. “It is not easy to get information from the regions we are speaking about. This doesn’t mean that these death reports are false. I can’t say whether any such re-examination is on but I would say that there is no harm in being doubly sure,” he said.
As per reports, there are nearly 80 Keralites, including women and children, in the Islamic State camps in Aleppo in Syria and Nangarhar in Afghanistan. It is said that recruitment of youths from Kannur and Kasaragod districts into the terror force has not slowed down despite the agencies’ increased vigil against its modules in the State.
