Twenty Islamic State recruits from Kerala in India are suspected to be among hundreds of foreign fighters who have surrendered to authorities in Afghanistan.

Key points: Dozens of Indians have been killed fighting for Islamic State overseas

Dozens of Indians have been killed fighting for Islamic State overseas Bindu Sampath's daughter Nimisha joined the group in 2016

Bindu Sampath's daughter Nimisha joined the group in 2016 She is now stuck in Afghanistan with her child

A middle-class Hindu woman in the tropical state is hoping her 29-year-old daughter and the grandchild she has never met might be among them.

Southern India is a fertile recruiting ground for the extremist organisation, with the Muslim minority population targeted by local and international Islamic State kingpins.

But families left behind say not all who join the organisation go willingly.

Bindu Sampath's daughter, Nimisha, left Kerala for Afghanistan in 2016.

She was following in the footsteps of a Muslim convert, after she fell pregnant to him.

Nimisha was seduced by a young man who convinced her to run away to Afghanistan to join Islamic State. ( Supplied: Bindhu Sampath )

Nimisha seemed an unlikely recruit for Islamic State, and her mother says she went because her boyfriend threatened to reveal their sexual relationship.

"If a guy touches her or goes to bed with her, it is not a crime," she says.

"She didn't do anything wrong."

Bindu believes the boy was also being manipulated.

In his case, she suspects a prominent and wealthy local family lured him into joining the terror group.

Bindu is cast out by her community

Bindu runs a beauty salon from home, and while she tries to live normally, many of her friends and family have rejected her because of her daughter's links to the terrorist group.

The Sampaths were considered an average middle class family in Kerala before Nimisha (top right) ran away to join IS. ( ABC News: Siobhan Heanue )

She says the social shame is unshakeable.

"If I was a Christian or a Muslim, I would have the whole community behind me," she says.

"As a Hindu I have only my shadow behind me. No-one."

She is also angry at the police for what she believes is a lack of action.

She says they knew the circle of people her daughter was falling in with, but let her travel to Afghanistan rather than intercept her because they wanted more information.

Bindu wants to meet her baby granddaughter, who she has only seen in a grainy phone photo.

She has intermittent contact with her daughter, who uses a phone belonging to someone living with her in Afghanistan.

A group of Indian IS fighters surrendered in Afghanistan, but Bindu doesn't know if her daughter was among them. ( Supplied: Bindu Sampath )

Bindu Sampath is still waiting for confirmation that her child is among the surrendered fighters in Afghanistan.

She is adamant her daughter will not be a threat to Indian society if she makes it home.

"Even if she has killed someone, I will fight for her, because I love her," she declares.

Kerala fights Islamic State's creeping influence

Indian authorities say dozens of Indians have been killed fighting for Islamic State overseas.

Indian authorities in Kerala say Islamic State is targeting the wealthy southern state for new recruits. ( ABC News: Siobhan Heanue )

Some Muslim leaders in India are trying to fight fire with fire, by tackling the narratives Islamic State is propagating in places like Kerala.

Extremists use the local languages in India's southern states to convince people to join up, masterfully translating local problems into calls for global jihad.

Jihadists have called for violence inside India too.

They have urged followers to mount vehicle attacks at popular Hindu and Christian festivals, similar to the 2016 truck attack in Nice that killed 87 people.

In Mumbai, where some of the first Indian recruits to Islamic State were radicalised, local groups have found that going online is the only way to counteract Islamist propaganda.

Local officials are concentrating their anti-radicalisation efforts on young people who attend Muslim shrines. ( ABC News: Siobhan Heanue )

At a 600-year-old shrine in the city, an IT developer has created an app aimed at dissuading vulnerable young people from joining extremist groups.

The app lists things like prayer times, but also features a section where people can anonymously submit queries.

Syed Sabbir has developed an app which helps people who might be at risk of being radicalised by Islamic State. ( ABC News: Siobhan Heanue )

"Day in, day out we get such queries about the authenticity of narratives that are being propagated by IS," Syed Sabbir explains.

Mr Sabbir says Islamist ideology provokes a lot of curiosity on the app, and the shrine has scholars on hand to debunk IS propaganda.

"We develop counter-narratives and we try to post those throughout social," he says.

"People can go through and understand exactly what is what."