The Kerala Police's investigation into the disappearance of 21 people from the State who are feared to have joined ISIS camps in Afghanistan has almost reached a dead end as the investigators are unable to get information, that is accessible only with the help of agencies with experienced investigations at international level.
Though the State police have been able to conclude that the missing people could have reached the ISIS camps in Afghanistan, the probe cannot be taken ahead without the assistance of global agencies like the Interpol, say sources. According to them, the investigation could be effectively taken ahead only if the NIA takes it over.
According to top officials, it is necessary to gather information at least on the whereabouts of the missing people - 17 from Kasaragod and four from Palakkad - to take the probe ahead but it is a task, which the State police force cannot complete on its own. The probe is now being carried out by a special team headed by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Kanhangad, Kasaragod.
The police have also not been able to collect crucial information that would help the probe from Maharashtra natives Arshi Qureshi, an associate of controversial preacher Zakir Naik, and Rizwan Khan, arrested in July respectively from Navi Mumbai and Kalyan, who are said to have helped the Keralites go abroad, though they were interrogated in custody for 29 days.
All that Qureshi and Khan have admitted so far is that they had helped some of the missing Keralites to convert into Islam but they have consistently denied having any connections with any terror outfit or helping anyone go abroad. They have now been sent to judicial custody till September 5.
Relatives of Nimisha, a Hindu girl from Thiruvananthapuram, who had converted to Islam to become Fatima and married Essah of Palakkad, a Christian who embraced Islam, had recently received a message that she had given birth to a baby girl. Nimisha was pregnant when she had gone missing along with her husband, his brother Yahia and his wife Merin alias Miriyam.
The message was sent from a mobile with number that started with 93, the country code for Afghanistan, but the exact point of the call's origination had not been traced. It had come in the name of Yahia, who had, like his brother, converted from Christianity to Islam, and had married Merin Jacob, a Christian girl from Kochi, who became Miriyam after embracing Islam.
Qureshi and Khan were arrested on the basis of a complaint lodged by the brother of Merin that they were the people behind her conversion. The police believe that Merin and Yahia had gone to Teheran, Iran on May 16 with the help of Qureshi and Khan but they have not made any admission to the police in this regard.
Nimisha alias Fatima, her husband Essah, originally Becson Vincent, his brother Yahia, who was Bestin Vincent before converting to Islam, and his wife Merin alias Miriyam had gone missing from their home at Yakkara near Palakkad along with 17 people who had disappeared from Kasaragod.