The person behind the ongoing social media-based campaign, intended at luring Keralites into the Islamic State (ISIS), is Abdul Rashid Abdullah of Udumbunthala near Thrikkarippur in Kasaragod district, according to the NIA. Rashid was one of 22 Keralites, who had gone missing in May-June, 2016 under mysterious circumstances and had allegedly joined the terror group in Afghanistan.
The finding has strengthened the suspicion that Rashid, who has reportedly been using the WhatsApp platform to spread ISIS ideology, mainly on Jehad, could have been playing a key role in recruiting Keralites to the terror group.
The NIA has received clear indications that 17 Kasaragod natives who formed part of the 22 missing persons were taken to ISIS camps in Afghanistan under Rashid’s leadership.
The Central Agency and the Kerala Police came to know about the ISIS campaign using a WhatsApp group, Message to Kerala, earlier this week after Harris Mustan, a trader from Anankoor, Kasaragod lodged a complaint after he was enrolled in the group without his permission. Sources said a minimum of 210 Keralites had already become members in this group.
Those behind the campaign are using voice messages sent through WhatsApp platform in order to lure Kerala youth into ISIS by instilling ultra-extremist Islamist ideology. The NIA came to the conclusion about Rashid’s role after his family members confirmed that the voice in the messages was his.
The agency has reportedly sought Interpol’s help to find Rashid who is believed to be in Nangarhar, Afghanistan.
Harris Mustan, who had received several such messages, had asked the sender whether Rashid Abdullah had been killed as reports suggested. The reply was: “The NIA and other agencies are releasing several unreliable reports… Even the NIA doesn’t have reliable sources. I am surprised by the reports on the death of Rashid Abdullah… because I am Rashid Abdullah”.
The WhatsApp campaign is being carried out from an Afghanistan number. The admin of the group is said to be one Abu Isa who, according to investigators, could be the same Isa from Palakkad who was in the group that had left India to join ISIS. A message received in Kerala a few days ago had said that Isa’s brother Yahia had been killed in Afghanistan in a US attack.
As per messages received by relatives and social activists in Kerala, three men — including Yahia — from the group of 22 persons who had left the country for joining the Islamic State, were killed in attacks in Afghanistan this year. The others who were killed in Afghanistan were TK Hafeezuddin and Murshid Muhamad, both from Kasaragod.
Though around 210 persons, mostly from Kasaragod, had become members of the Message to Kerala group, several of them have withdrawn from it after coming to know of its ISIS connection. It is also suspected that ISIS operatives could have created more such groups on social media platforms for popularising the ideology of Jihad.
Investigators have also learned that numbers of several members in local WhatsApp groups of Thrikkarippur have been added to the Message to Kerala group without their knowledge or permission. INA sources said that getting ground-level intelligence from Nangarhar where Rashid and other Keralites could be living was extremely difficult.
The messages about Keralite ISIS recruits in Afghanistan to relatives in Kasaragod used to come in the name of KP Ashfaq Majeed, one of the recruits from Kasaragod. The information about the death of Hafeezuddin and Murshid Muhammad was conveyed to Kerala in his name but the source of the message about Yahia’s death was unclear.