According to the latest reports from the National Investigation Agency (NIA), around 30 youths from Kerala has attended ISIS training camps in Afghanistan.

While probing on the matter of 29 people missing from Kerala, NIA came to know about this.

According to reports, some of the youths who went to attend theISIS training camps in Afghanistan returned to India only to set up sleeper cells.

"Many educated Muslim youths from Kerala who were working in Gulf countries had strong links with IS terror networks," the report also said.
Furthermore, NIA came to know that some NRI businessmen had funded these terror activities of these youth.

“The image of secular Kerala is a vanity. The state has been a breeding ground of terror networks”, a police officer was quoted as saying.

"Apart from radical Muslim outfits operating in the state, so-called secular religious groups are also involved in encouraging youth to join ISIS," said the report.

The youths were recruited by the handlers of terror outfits through social media through which neither the police nor the intelligence agencies got to know about this.

Previously, NIA had identified Sajeer Abdulla Mangalaseri who was the chief of the Islamic State network in Kerala. 35-year-old Sajeer, is a Civil Engineer from National Institute of Technology, Kozhikode. Another man named, Salafist from Moozhikal in Kozhikode was also involved in recruiting people from Kerala.

Intelligence agencies assume that Sajeer is no more working in UAE. He is instead hiding somewhere in Afghanistan, by keeping in touch with all the missing youths from Kerala.

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BY M.DIVYA SRI