As per recent reports from the National Investigative Agency (NIA), the 14 people who went missing from Kasaragod district of Kerala in 2015, allegedly to join the Islamic State are still propagating extremist ideologies in India.
According to The New Indian Express, a recent NIA report says that the missing youngsters are currently in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, from where they are using different means including social media platforms, to spread IS ideologies in India.
It was in July 2016 that the Kerala Police filed a case against the missing 14 and later it was handed over to NIA.
The prime accused in the case is Abdul Rashid (30) of Udumbunthala in Kasaragod. Police had arrested his second wife Yasmeen Mohammad Zahid (29), a native of Bihar, while she was trying to board a flight to Afghanistan.
The mass migration was believed to have been planned and guided by Rashid according to police and NIA reports. The report says that Rashid and his first wife, Sonia Sebastian, who later converted to Islam, had been conducting secret classes across Kerala and persuading youngsters to join IS.
“Rashid was pursuing Islamic studies from Al-Quma Arabic College at Colombo, Sri Lanka, from where he was prematurely expelled with other like-minded associates for advocating violent jihad.
Yasmeen allegedly attended the secret classes with Rashid and harboured a desire to migrate to India, the report states.
The couple secretly stayed together on two occasions in Patna, Bihar, while trying to renew Yasmeen’s passport and obtain a passport for her child, the reports adds.