With Hijab before Kitab, radicals trying to make Karnataka a Kerala

New Delhi, Feb 18: The hijab row in Karnataka has been making national headlines. While the Karnataka High Court continues to hear the matter, the protests continue and many students have been boycotting schools and colleges.

In this backdrop the name of a group called as the Campus Front of India has come to the forefront. It has been accused of trying to radicalise the students and ensuring that this issue spreads nationally.

An Intelligence Bureau official tells OneIndia that there has been a sustained campaign in the past couple of years to pick a state, create an issue and ensure that it becomes a national discourse.

Kerala was a laboratory for some of these Islamic radicals and with them getting huge success there, they are now trying to spread it to other states. Similar issues have been raked up in Kerala over the years and on some occasions even the judiciary had to intervene.

The official cited above says that the current laboratory of these radicals is Coastal Karnataka. They are trying to do in Karnataka what they did in Kerala over the years. They are trying to push the Hijab before Kitab narrative. The extent of radicalisation in Coastal Karnataka is evident from the National Investigation Agency's case in connection with an Islamic State case.

In this case a girl from Coorg, Karnataka converted herself to Islam married a Muslim and went on a radicalising and recruiting spree, the NIA said in its case. The NIA said that one Mohammad Ameen from Kerala was running several ISIS propaganda channels. In these the new way of life to be followed, prescribing compulsory hijab and indulging in violent Jihad would be propagated.

In the same case the girl from Coorg, Deepti Marla who went on to become Maryam was also arrested.

The NIA said that she had honey trapped and then converted 10 Hindu youth into Islam. Once they were converted to Islam, she would force them to join the ISIS. Maryam was arrested from Ullal in Coastal Karnataka. Another person to be arrested from Ullal in the same case is Ammar Abdul Rahman.

It was alleged that his niece was part of a group of Muslims who had left Kerala for Afghanistan.

In 2017, the NIA had filed a chargesheet in which said that Rehman's niece, Ajmala and her husband Shifas K P left for Afghanistan via Bengaluru and joined the ISKP in the Nangarhar province. Ajmala is said to have been killed in 2018.

Officials say that these cases clearly show how closely the radicals from Kerala and Karnataka work. Most of these are inter-connected and hence it is clear that these radicals are tying to do in Karnataka what they did for years in Kerala.