Islamic State’s first suicide bomber was a Kerala Christian converted to Islam: The state needs to wake up

The bomber was an engineering graduate from Kerala and worked in Bengaluru as an engineer. He later migrated to Dubai where he got attracted to Islam.

New Delhi, Aug 22: A Christian from Kerala who converted to Islam was the first suicide bomber of the Islamic State. An article published in the outfit's mouthpiece 'Voice of Khorasan' cited the bomber in the chapter 'Memories of Shuhada'.

The bomber was an engineering graduate from Kerala and worked in Bengaluru as an engineer. He later migrated to Dubai. While the probe by the National Investigation Agency would bring out more details on the bomber's identity, while he was with the Islamic State, he used the name Aboobacker-Al-Hindi. He is incidentally the third person from Kerala who died for the Islamic State.

The other two are from Kasargod. While Mohsin from Trikkaripur in Kasagod was part of the Sikh Gurudwara attack in Kabul, Dr. Ejas Kallukettupurayil blew self up during an attack at a jail in Kabul.

It was during his stint in Dubai that he got attracted to Islam. He went on to do more research on the religion and eventually converted to Islam. He later went on to contact some persons in the sleeper cells in Dubai. He was to travel to Yemen for training, but was unable to go following which he returned to Kerala. Later he was contacted by his handler who told him that there was an opening in Libya.

He applied for a visa to Libya under the pretext of applying for a job. In Libya he was trained and fought against the Libyan Army at Sirsit during which he blasted himself to death.

Sources tell OneIndia that this is not the first time that the name of this person is cropping up. The agencies had wind about this operative and some information reveals that this incident where he blew himself up could have taken place sometime in 2015.

Kerala has been one of the top contributors to the Islamic State. Inspector General of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Alok Mittal said that the highest known recruits from India are from Tamil Nadu and the number is at 33.

He had said during a 2019 conference that out of the 127 known recruits from India, 33 alone were from Tamil Nadu. Since 2019, several have died and today as per the US report, the known number of Indian Islamic State terrorists stands at 66.

Out of the 127 Indians who joined the ISIS, 21 are from Kerala. The figures for the rest of the country are Uttar Pradesh (1), Telangana (14), Maharashtra (12), Karnataka (8) and Delhi (7).

A report by the US State Department in December 2021 said that 66 Islamic State terrorists of Indian origin were operating abroad with the global terrorist organisation.

The report said that none of the Indian operatives were repatriated. Within India, through the end of September, the National Investigation Agency had investigated 34 terrorism cases it indicated were related to ISIS and arrested 160 persons, the annual Country Reports on Terrorism for 2020 issued by the department's Bureau of Counterterrorism said.