The police in the district are keeping close tabs on a person from Thalassery who is found to be the “main source of inspiration” for Muslim youths in the region who have been radicalised.
The investigators involved in probing cases relating to the youths who had gone to join the IS in Syria and Afghanistan have found that the person, identified as Hamza, is the ‘ideologue’ who was indoctrinating the youths. The police said he had been under police watch since they got information that he was brainwashing the youths. “He is well-versed in Islamic theology and is found to have influenced a couple of youths in the region to be recruited as IS fighters,” said P.P. Sadanandan, Deputy Superintendent of Police.
According to the police, most of those recruited to join the IS in the district were either directly indoctrinated by Hamza or by those who were already under his spell. The police said a probe was on to identify people who were part of sleeper cells of the IS. The Malayalam blog ‘Al-Muhajirun,’ now closed, had served as a platform for inspiring people to wage jihad, the police said.
The police said they were expecting more cases of return of IS operatives as the jihadi organisation was fleeing from the territories they controlled.
They said that reports of deaths of youths from the region who had joined the IS abroad could never be fully confirmed in the absence of bodies.