Six-member family from Kasaragod slips into war-torn Yemen 'for religious studies', pings on NIA radar

Kasaragod: A young couple with their four school-going children from Padna panchayat in Kasaragod district illegally slipped into war-torn Yemen, sending officers of Kerala Police into a tizzy.

The family, residing in Dubai for the past 10 years, entered Yemen via Saudi Arabia, said police officers in Kerala.

Indians need special permission from the Union Government to go to Yemen because of the raging conflict in the West Asian country. In 2015, the Indian government evacuated its citizens in Yemen and shifted its embassy from the capital Sana'a to neighbouring Djibouti.

Kerala police came to know of the departure of family from Padna to Yemen when the NIA made enquiries in the family's village Udinoor in Padna panchayat on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the police called the relatives of the missing family to Chandera police station and made them lodge a missing complaint.

Two other youths from Vadakepuram in Padna panchayat have also reportedly entered Yemen from Oman and Saudi Arabia, where they used to work.

But Kasaragod police said they do not have information on them.

Padna, an affluent coastal panchayat, was put on terrorism map in May 2016 when 17 persons left their homes and went to Nangarhar province of Afghanistan to join the Islamic State (IS), a banned pan-Islamist terrorist organisation. Two other brothers from Palakkad and their wives, were also part of the module.

But police officers said that the recent departures were not linked to IS but for religious studies.

This family from Udinoor was living in Dubai for 10 years, they said. "That's why we did not know when they went to Yemen," said an officer of the special branch.

The man, aged around 40 years, is a regional manager and trainer of a leading business improvement and management consulting firm in Dubai.

The company has branches in Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Bengaluru, and Kochi. "He is with Dubai branch and used to travel frequently to Gulf countries to train staff of his client companies," the officer said. His wife, a native of Thalassery in Kannur, is also employed but the officer did not share the nature of her job. The couple has taken their four sons -- aged three, five, six, and nine years old -- along with them to Yemen.

A person close to the family said they had come home for a week's vacation in June. "But he (the man) stopped communicating with his friends around four months ago," the family friend said. Now, they are in touch only with their immediate family members through messaging apps. "In one of the messages, he said that they are in Yemen to study Islam and Arabic and will return after a year," the friend said.

Yemen is a sought-after destination for those seeking to study Islam. Despite the conflict, foreign students continue to flock to universities in Yemen to pursue religious studies.

But security agencies are worried because Yemen is a recruitment ground for insurgent groups fighting there.

In March 2022, a 14-member family led by a couple from Kasaragod and Kozhikode tried to enter Yemen via Oman. The group, which included four minor children, was stopped and sent back by the Yemeni border security.