Kannur resident arrested after being deported from Turkey on third attempt to cross into IS territory

At least six persons from Kerala are said to be fighting alongside the Islamic State (IS) in Syria since February, according to disclosures by a Kannur resident to the Delhi Police after he was deported from Turkey recently.

Shahjahan Velluva Kandy from Kannur in Kerala, who was arrested on July 1 at the Delhi airport on being deported, has identified at least six persons from in and around Kannur who were said to be in the IS-controlled territory.

From Dubai

Kandy told security agencies that the six men had crossed over to Syria while two others were deported.

He told interrogators that some of them were working in Dubai and had reached Turkey through Iran, from where they crossed over to Syria on foot. An official said they were interrogating Kandy further to know the exact point from where the Kerala men crossed over to Syria, adding there were many points along Turkey-Syria border to illegally cross over.

All accounted for

“All the men named by Kandy have been accounted for and we are investigating further. Some of them went from Dubai, where they were working, so their families were also not aware. Kandy was caught when a paying guest accommodation where he was living in Istanbul was raided by Turkish authorities,” a senior Home Ministry official told The Hindu. It is not clear whether Kandy and others had the same handler, who was directing them online.

The Islamist organisation, which had captured large areas in Syria and Iraq to establish a ‘Caliphate,’ has been losing territory over the past few months as coalition forces reclaim the areas under their control. While Mosul in Iraq has been declared free of IS control, Syrian forces were in the last leg to recapture Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the terrorist outfit.

In numbers: Mosul and the war against Islamic State

Escaped scrutiny

The official said the escape of the four persons to Syria at a time when the hold of the terrorist organisation was shrinking was a cause of concern as security agencies had till now no knowledge of this development.

Kandy managed to slip from the radar of security agencies even though he had been questioned by the authorities in February and was under “scrutiny.”

Last year, 21 men, women and children from Kerala had left for Afghanistan via Iran to live in the IS controlled territory. Mainly comprising defectors from Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP), the Wilayat Khorasan of Islamic State in Afghanistan came into existence in 2015. Three of them are learnt to have been killed in drone attacks.

Earlier, agencies had information about 30 Indians who were said to be fighting for IS since 2014. Most of these fighters included former Indian Mujahideen members who fled India after the serial bombings in 2008.

Police said, the last was Kandy’s third attempt to cross over to Syria from Turkey in the past one year. Kandy made the first attempt when he went alone to Malaysia in 2016 but he returned as he couldn’t get a contact in Turkey. He went to Malaysia again in February 2016 and travelled on to Turkey in June the same year with his wife and children. He and his family were caught by the Turkish authorities and deported to India.

In 2017, he again went to Malaysia on a forged passport, travelled to Iran and then reached Turkey with hopes to cross over to Syria, when was caught again and handed over to Indian authorities.