Intelligence and investigating agencies on Tuesday detained and questioned four persons who were reportedly deported from UAE following suspicions of links with Islamist terror group ISIS. Two persons were questioned at the Thiruvananthapuram airport while the other two were detained at the Kozhikode airport.
Those who were questioned at Thiruvananthapuram had arrived by an Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi at 3.30 am on Tuesday. Officials of the Kerala Police’s Special Branch, Intelligence Bureau, RAW and NIA questioned them, sources said. One of them belonged to Kilimanoor in Thiruvananthapuram while the other hailed from Adoor in Pathanamthitta.
The two persons questioned jointly by different agencies at Kozhikode airport belonged to Kozhikode and Malappuram districts. Both had arrived by an Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi. One of them was said to be a relative of Jabir from Thiruvnavaya, Malappuram who was deported from UAE for suspected ISIS links earlier.
Sources said on Tuesday evening that no concrete evidence had come out in the questioning to establish their ISIS links but probe would go on. Those detained at Thiruvananthapuram were said to have been born and brought up in the UAE and they were deported following reports that they had been in contact with ISIS through social networking sites.
Tuesday’s incident followed a similar incident just days ago in which two persons were deported to Kochi from UAE over the suspicion that they could have been radicalized by the ISIS. However, the Intelligence agencies, after questioning them in detail, had decided not to register any case against them.