Intelligence and investigating agencies have intensified their probe into the alleged recruitment of youths into global terror force Islamic State (ISIS) in Kerala’s northern Malabar region.
The probe has been intensified in the context of information on the mysterious disappearance of several youths from the interior regions of Kannur and Kasaragod districts recently and a message that ISIS recruit Shajil (36) from Kamalpeeidka, Chakkarakkalu in Kannur district had been killed in a recent US air attack against the terror force in Syria.
According to sources, the Central Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have received crucial clues regarding continuing recruitment into the ISIS from northern Malabar from Shajahan Velluvakandy of Kannur, who was arrested in Delhi early July while trying to flee to Syria through Turkey using fake documents.
It is said that the Islamists involved in the recruitment activities for the ISIS have shifted their bases into the interiors of Kasaragod and Kannur districts after the Thrikkarippur and Padanna areas of Kasaragod district fell on the agencies’ radar after 21 persons from these places and Palakkad left the country in May-June, 2016 to join the terror force in Afghanistan.
The ISIS recruiters operating in northern Malabar have reportedly stopped making mass recruitments from specific centres in order to avoid being conspicuous. According to sources, nearly a dozen persons could have been inducted into the terror outfit from different places in Kannur and Kasaragod through this decentralization strategy in the recent past.
As per one report, youths have gone missing recently from Pappinissery, Mayyil, Munderi and Valapattanam areas of Kannur district. Officials say that these areas had not figured in the ISIS’s recruitment map till recently. They also claim that almost all these missing youths were activists of a particular Islamist organisation formerly.
The investigators have received enough indications to believe that it was Shajahan who had worked behind the recruitment of many of these youths, including Shajil, into the Islamic State. The agencies intensified their investigations into the ISIS recruitment activities in Kannur on the basis of Shajahan’s disclosures.
The agencies have learned that the Turkish authorities had deported Shajahan into India twice while travelling on fake documents. He had reached Istanbul along with his wife last January. He then left his wife at home and traveled to Istanbul once again later using fake documents organised from Chennai.
Two other persons from Kannur district, Abdul Razak of Kuttyattoor and Abdul Khayoom of Maniyur, had reportedly travelled with Shajahan to Istanbul. While Abdul Khayoom managed to travel to Syria, Shajahan and Abdul Razak were caught by the Turkish police. Shajahan is said to have sold his vehicle to gather the money needed for his travels.
A youth who formerly had close connections with Islamist organisation Popular Front of India, Shajil had gone missing several months ago and subsequent inquiries had led the agencies to the conclusion that he could have joined the ISIS in Syria. His wife and two children also had gone missing along with him.
With the reported death of Shajil, the number of Keralite ISIS recruits killed in Afghanistan and Syria has gone up to 15, including Shajeer Abdulla Mangalassery, a young engineer hailing from Mukkom near Kozhikode. Shajeer Mangalassery, according to the agencies, was the man in charge of recruitment of youths into the terror force earlier.
The Keralite ISIS recruits killed so far also included Murshid Muhammad, TK Hafeezuddin, Marwan and Yahia – all from the group of 21 persons who had gone missing in May-June, 2016. Murshid, Hafeezuddin and Marwan were natives of Kasaragod while Yahia, originally a Christian who had embraced Islam, belonged to Yakkara near Palakkad.