Did 21 Keralites join the Wilayat Khorasan in Afganistan?

New Delhi, Sept 12: The National Investigation Agency is burning the midnight oil to try and piece together evidence in a case relating to the missing people from Kerala who are suspected to have joined the ISIS.

Over a month back 21 people from Kerala had gone off the radar and were suspected to join the ISIS' Wilayat Khorasan (WK) in Afghanistan.

The Wilayat Khorasan which was set up by the ISIS in 2015 was meant to be the arm of the outfit in Afghanistan.

Research and Analysis Wing officials had said that the WK which controls a small part of Afghanistan is likely to grow in strength due to a truce with the Taliban. Both had decided not to trespass into each other's area and fight the Western forces together.

NIA officials say that the last location of the missing people has been detected in Iran. All these people had flown out of the country from different destinations.

However, each one had landed in Iran on a tourist visa, investigations revealed. The Iran route has been the most preferred in the past year for recruits of the ISIS either trying to get into Afghanistan or Iraq.

Yasmin Ahmed who was radicalised by her husband, Abdul Rashid of Kasargod on the Kerala-Karnataka border was arrested in Delhi while trying to fly into Afghanistan. It was her interrogation that gave the NIA some clue about the location of the rest of the people. Yasmin was part of the same module and according to her interrogation, all the members were to land in Afghanistan.

Officials suspect that each one may have crossed over into Afghanistan from Iran. There are several touts who provide access to illegal routes from Iran to enter into Afghanistan. Indian officials have been in touch with authorities both in Iran and Afghanistan, but so far no concrete information has been forthcoming.

OneIndia News