A man from Kerala who allegedly joined ISIS was killed in drone strike in Afghanistan (Representational)
Highlights
- Family of Kerala man, suspected to have joined ISIS, says he was killed
- They received message from another Indian believed to be ISIS recruit
- Authorities suspect around 17 people from Kerala joined ISIS last year
One of the 11 young men who were suspected to have gone to join ISIS from Kerala's Kasargode, has allegedly died in a drone strike in Afghanistan. The family today received a WhatsApp message that read, "Hafees has been killed in a drone strike yesterday. We consider him
shuhada (martyred) and Allah knows best".
The person who sent the message, another missing Indian, also said,"We are waiting for our turn.
Insha Allah". There is no official confirmation of the death from the government.
Around 17 people, including pregnant women and three children from Kerala were suspected to have gone to join the ISIS in June last year. After they went missing, the families received messages that made
the National Investigation Agency suspect that they had joined ISIS.
Hafesudheen TK had returned to Kerala after working for a while in the middle-east. He and the others, investigators say, were radicalised by Abdul Rasheed, considered the kingpin of the ISIS indoctrinations that took place in Kasargode. Abdul Rasheed had briefly worked at Peace International School in Kozhikode briefly.
The families had filed complaints with the police after the young men went missing. Later they said they had noticed signs that their sons were behaving in a different fashion, although they did not know why.
"Our children are very well-educated and we are not rigid as a family. But we started seeing steady changes in them... until they left us one day," one of the fathers had told NDTV. The young men, he said, did not watch television or mingle much with outsiders. They were religiously studying Quran. "They were loving sons and we don't how all of this happened," he had added.