Kerala launches probe into missing youths’ IS links
Thiruvananthapuram : Reports indicating a group of 19 youths from Kasargod and Palakkad joining the IS camp have raised alarm in Kerala.
Terming the development serious, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has ordered an investigation into the matter. The state police have sought the assistance of National Investigation Agency (NIA) and central intelligence agencies.
State Director General of Police Loknath Behera said the preliminary investigation by the police could not confirm that the youths, who were reported missing from the state for the last one month, had joined the terror group.
Kasargod MP K Karunakaran had taken up the matter with the chief minister after parents of some of the youths received messages from the youths saying that they had embraced Daesh.
The youths, all of them below 30, are well educated and hail from well-to-do families. Contd. on The missing youths included four couples, three bachelors and two kids. Among them were a doctor couple, an engineer and manager of an “international” school. Four of the youths have left with their wives and two had their children with them.
The missing youths comprised 15 from Kasargod and four from Palakkad. The youths from Kasargod hailed from two nearby villages – Padanna and Thrikkaripur. They left home on June 6 as part of a local Salafi group.
The parents started receiving the messages from the youths last week. They conveyed identical message with jihadi flavours leading to suspicion that they have joined the IS ranks. A message received by the parents of one of the youths said that he had left Dar al Jahannam (hell) for Dar al Jannah – the paradise and he was in a war zone.
The parents of two missing youths received ”Whatsapp” messages saying that they had reached a place where there was divine rule and they are not going to return. The message urged the family members to join them. Another message said that they had joined IS to fight US for attacking Muslims.
The family members suspect that the youths would be either in Syria or Afghanistan as some of the messages originated from there. However, the DGP said the police were trying to find out the veracity of the messages. He pointed out that none of the parents had lodged any formal complaint with the police so far.
The state intelligence officials in Kasargod and Palakkad summoned relatives of the youths on Saturday and gathered information about the past activities of the youths. A senior intelligence official said they were baffled by the similarity in the messages received by the parents. He said the statements given by some were also contradictory. The official, who did not want to be identified, said a detailed investigation was required to find out the truth. However, he confirmed that the youths were missing for the last one month. However, sources in intelligence do not rule out the possibility of the youths receiving indoctrination. The father of a youth had said that his son used to regularly go to Tirur, a remote town in the Muslim-dominated Malappuram district, saying he was engaged in a group farming activity there. The source suspects that the youths may have been indoctrinated there. The special branch investigation also revealed that the youths knew one other and were in touch with each other. Though they were not associated with any political or religious group before, they turned orthodox and started sporting long beards after visiting Tirur.
