Kochi: Amid grim reports on the activities of global terror outfit ISIS in Kerala and its links with the recent deadly blasts in Sri Lanka, a Kollam resident who is an accused in the recruitment of people for subversive activities, was brought back from Qatar by an Indian law enforcement agency.
Muhammed Faisal, who is said to have links with the Salafi jihadist militant group ISIS, arrived here on a Doha-Kochi flight on Tuesday. The accused no.18 in the sensational ISIS recruitment case will be produced before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Wednesday.
The NIA believes Faisal, a native of Changankulangara in Kollam district, was part of a team that planned to promote and spread ISIS’s terrorist ideology in Kerala. Their gang leader was Palakkad native Riyas Aboobacker or Abu Dujana, who is a follower of Zahran Hashim, the mastermind of the Easter Day terror attacks in Sri Lanka. Riyas admitted that he wanted to carry out a suicide attack in Kerala, a NIA spokesperson had said on April 29
Proof of several of Faisal’s contacts with Riyas has been unearthed. Riyas is undergoing interrogation. Many, including a woman, who contacted Faisal through social media are under watch.
Faisal returned from Qatar following NIA’s request. He had done a fire and safety course after leaving engineering studies and was yet to find a job in Qatar despite being there for over a month and half.
In 2016 it was widely reported that 14 youth from Kerala's northern region went to Afghanistan and one to Syria following a concerted activity to recruit them for terror operations in conflict zones where the IS is active.
Meanwhile, an accused in the 2005 Kalamassery bus burning incident is still at large, Muhammad Sabir (Ayub) Kochupeediyakkal, who is originally from Marakkarkandi in Kerala's Kannur district, is learnt to have travelled worldwide on a Pakistan passport. He has reportedly made several trips from Rawalpindi to Dubai. Intelligence agencies see it as a Pakistan ploy to protect terrorists charged in India under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Since Pakistan will not cooperate, India is trying to arrest such people from countries they visit by securing Interpol’s help.