Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 21(BPNS)

The Central intelligence agencies have commenced probe into an article in the mouthpiece of ISIS ‘Voice of Koharasan’ that the first Indian suicide bomber for the IS was a Keralite who had converted from Christianity into Islam. In the latest issue of the magazine, the article about the suicide bomber is in the chapter ‘Memories of Shuhada’ which is a portion dedicated to the memories of the martyrs of the organization.

 The article in the mouthpiece did not however have not mentioned the exact identity of the youth. The article dwells that he was an engineering graduate from Kerala and he had worked in Bengaluru as an engineer and later migrated to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The article further states that the youth had assumed the name, ‘Aboobacker Al-Hindi’ and that he got attracted to Islam while in UAE. He later did more research on the religion through available online portals and later converted to Islam.

After conversion, he, according to the magazine, got attracted to the ideology of Jihad and contacted IS sleeper cells in Dubai. He was planning to go to Yemen for further training but was not able to and hence he returned to his home state Kerala. After spending some time in Kerala, he got a message from IS contacts that there was an opportunity in Libya and accordingly he reached there under the guise of searching for a new job. According to the article in the ISIS mouthpiece, he fought against the Libyan army at Sirsit, the stronghold of ISIS, and later became a suicide bomber and blasted himself to death.

Central Intelligence agencies had earlier itself got some wind off such a person and had commenced a probe into the same. Sources in the agency told BPNS that he would have committed the act in 2015-16 and that there is some information about him with the Central agencies.

Sources in the agencies told BPNS that they have details of 100 youths from Kerala who had left the shores of the state to reach ISIS and officials said that there could be more people who had reached ISIS in Syria and Yemen.

It is to be noted that ‘Aboobacker Al- Hindi’ is the third person from Kerala who had died for the cause propagated by the organization, according to its mouthpiece, ‘Voice of Khorasan’. The first one who, according to ISIS had become a suicide bomber was identified as Mohsin from Trikkaripur in Kasargod district. He was the suicide bomber who attacked the Sikh Gurudwara in Kabul and blasted himself as a suicide bomber on March 25, 2020. He was named in an earlier edition of ‘Voice of Khoarasan’ as ‘Abukhalid Al-Hindi’. In the suicide bombing he had done along with 2 others, 25 people lost their lives.

The second person who got recognition in ISIS magazine was Dr. Ejas who had gone to the ISIS from Kasargod district of Kerala. His full name was Ejas Kallukettupurayil he was a medical doctor. The IS publication division eulogises him for the ‘brave act’ of killing 39 people by attacking a jail in Kabul.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had in its report said that Dr. Ejas had left India in 2016 along with his pregnant wife Refala.

The central agencies are probing the latest revelations in the IS publication and are trying to ascertain whether anyone else had left to join IS along with ‘Aboobacker Al-Hindi’.