The mystery behind the disappearance of 22 people from Kerala who are reported to have joined Islamic State (ISIS) camps in Afghanistan has resurfaced with the family of one of the young women in the group receiving a message saying that she has given birth to a baby girl. The family of another young woman in the group had received a similar message in August.
As per the message reportedly sent through Telegram mobile App, Rifaila, wife of Ijas, a doctor from Padanna, Thrikkarippur in Kerala’s Kasaragod district, has given birth to a baby girl. The message was sent to Ijas’s sister by Ashfaq, another person who had gone missing from the same district.
Ijas, Rifaila and their one-and-a-half-year old son were among the 17 people who had gone missing over three months ago from Kasaragod district. Four persons — two young men and their wives — had also gone missing from Yakkara in Palakkad district. Relatives had earlier said that Rifaila was pregnant when she had gone missing.
The place of origin of the message has not yet been identified but it is presumed that it had originated in Afghanistan. It is said that the message was sent by Ashfaq from the account of Abdul Rasheed Abdullah, an engineering graduate who is thought to be the chief coordinator of the group that had left India allegedly for joining the ISIS.
The message has reportedly been handed over to the NIA, which is currently investigating the case. The agency is examining the message about Rifaila and other messages received from those who had gone missing. Rifaila herself had sent home a message a few days after their disappearance to say that they had not joined any terrorist group.
In her earlier message, she had told her relatives that the stories spreading in India about them were false and that they had left the country in search of jobs. Ijas’s brother Shiyas, a management degree-holder, and his wife Ajmela, a physiotherapist, were also in the group that had gone missing from Kasaragod district.
On August 21, the relatives of Nimisha, another young woman in the group of the missing people, had received a message saying she had given birth to a baby girl. Nimisha, a Hindu from Thiruvananthapuram who had embraced Islam and assumed the name of Fatima, was pregnant when she had left India with her husband Essah from Palakkad, originally a Christian.
Essah’s younger brother, who also had embraced Islam to assume the name of Yahia, and his wife, a Christian from Kochi named Merin who had converted to Islam and got rechristened as Miriyam, also had left the country with them. Nimisha had converted to Islam when she was a dentistry student and Merin embraced Islam when she was working in Mumbai.
Marwan, one of those who had gone missing from Kasaragod, had in a message sent to his parents earlier indicated that they had reached ISIS-controlled region. He said in the message that people had termed him as a terrorist and that he was proud to be called so if fighting in the name of Allah was an act of terrorism.
Meanwhile, reports from Delhi said that the authorities in Afghanistan and Iran had told the Indian Home Department that they had no information about the people who had gone missing. The Indian Intelligence agencies had got enough clues to believe that those who had left the country could have reached ISIS camps in Afghanistan via Tehran, Iran.