Investigating and Intelligence agencies have started probing the alleged role of Hawala and money-funneling rackets in the recruitment of Keralites into Islamic State (ISIS) even as the Kerala Police have found that social media platforms like WhatsApp are still being used by the terror outfit to seek Keralites’ physical and financial involvement in Jehad.
The NIA and the Kerala Police have got evidences for efforts through Hawala rackets for expanding ISIS’s influence in Kerala and for recruitments. They are of the opinion that a large group of former operatives of banned Islamist organisation SIMI has been in control of the Hawala operations that have been contributing to the growth of ISIS influence.
Investigators believe that this group which had earlier been specialising in Gulf-based Hawala transactions and distribution of counterfeit currencies had later become patrons of terror recruitment in Kerala. They have been doing this by ensnaring people from economically backward families and those who were in debt trap.
The usual modus operandi of the terror-linked Hawala rackets is to first arrange employment for such people in Gulf countries and then push them to ISIS camps in Syria and Afghanistan, according to sources. It is said that Muhammad Shajil of Kannur, who was reportedly killed while waging Jehad for the ISIS in Syria, had reached there through this route.
Shajil, who reportedly had a debt burden of nearly Rs 4,00,000 in his native place, had reached Syria through this route. The agencies had recently come across a voice message sent from Syria in which another ISIS man, Abdul Manaf, also from Kannur, telling a friend of Shajil that he would repay the money he had borrowed from him as Shajil was dead.
Many of those in this Hawala racket are believed to have shifted their bases to the Gulf countries over the past one year. Also, relatives of some of them had carried out Benami deals worth several crores in Kerala. Though the State police and its Intelligence wing had been given indications on this, these were not treated with the required seriousness, sources alleged.
Meanwhile, the police have come across a WhatsApp voice message sent by a Keralite ISIS operative asking Muslims in the State to perform Hijrah (migration) to Dawlat Islam (Islamic State). Those who were unable to do so this could contribute to Jehad by providing financial assistance, according to the ten-minute video, said police sources.
The police at Edakkara in Malappuram district have registered a case in relation to this for propagation of messages for inciting religious enmity and wooing people into an extremist organisation — the ISIS. The agencies had come across such messages in May last but the intensity of campaign was believed to have come down after that.
The voice message contains advices for the faithful on the approach to be adopted towards non-Muslims and harsh criticisms against several mainstream Muslim organisations in Kerala. The most recent of such voice messages the police had interrupted says that it is the 50th such transmission from the terror group.
According to the police, the voice in the message is that of Abdul Rashid Abdullah from Kasaragod, who had gone missing from the country along with 20 others in May-June, 2016 and had joined the ISIS in Afghanistan. Rashid himself was said to be the coordinator of a similar ISIS campaign that had caught the agencies’ attention in May.
Rashid, an engineer and son of an NRI, was said to be the leader of the group of 21– including him — from Kasaragod and Palakkad who had gone to the ISIS camps last year. He had taken his wife Ayisha, originally a Christian named Sonia who embraced Islam, and their little daughter Sarah along with him to Afghanistan.