The 22 people missing from Kerala and suspected to have joined ISIS have reached the terror group’s so-called Caliphate in Afghanistan, as per intelligence inputs. Many of them are supposed to be undergoing training under the guidance of dreaded terrorists, said sources.
NIA sources said the 13 men, 6 women and three children had left their houses in Kasargod and Pallakad districts of Kerala between mid-May and first week of July. Since then there is no trace of them.
“All of them had exited India from Bangalore, Hyderabad or Mumbai airports for Kuwait, Dubai, Muscat or Abu Dhabi from where they are learnt to have travelled to Afghanistan via Iran. One Yasmin Mohammad Zahid, who was nabbed at the IGI Airport in Delhi while trying to flee India to Afghanistan, is reported to have given the information,” a senior NIA official said.
Yasmin, 29, was arrested by the NIA on August 1. During her custodial interrogation, Yasmin revealed that her husband and co-accused in the terror case, Abdul Rashid, told her in the first week of July that he and other missing persons from Kerala had reached the Caliphate in Afghanistan.
Yasmin also revealed that she had married Rashid, 30, on May 3 in a nikah ceremony solemnised over the phone in which another co-accused Shihas acted as “wali” (guardian) of the bride, while another co-accused Ashfaque and Yahya acted as witnesses. Thereafter, Abdul Rashid used to send videos and messages in support of the Caliphate and Abu Backer al-Baghdadi to her.
Yasmin further disclosed that Rashid and his first wife Ayesha were in touch with a UK-based couple who had converted to Islam and were spreading messages in support of ISIS and the Caliphate over social networking platform.
Rashid had given the ATM card of his first wife Ayesha to Yasmin and transferred Rs 1.5 lakh into her account in mid-July. Yasmin used the money for her travel preparations to Afghanistan.
She had purchased flight tickets, paid for the Afghanistan visa fee, and also converted the currency to $620 using the money from Ayesha’s account.
Earlier in July, the Intelligence agencies had picked up intercepts of another missing Ashfaque Mohammad, 23, that originated from Afghanistan with country code +93. Ashfaque had gone missing from his home at Kasargod on May 28 informing his parents that he was going to Kozhikode for undertaking Quran classes.
A week later, he had told his parents that he was leaving for Sri lanka. The parents had alerted the police when they received a message over a month later in which he claimed that he had “reached the final destination, abode of Allah.”