along with his wife, Fauzia, and two sons, Salman and Safwan, and daughter, Sajitha. Shameer, who ran a furniture shop in Kannur, was killed in 2017. His son, Salman and three others from Kannur, also died later. Shameer had last contacted his brother Rahim on July 5th, 2016, from Saudi Arabia from the number 00 966582056104.

Before Shameer left for Syria, he had motivated Manaf and four others to go for Hijra (holy migration) to Syria and join IS. One of them happened to be Shahjahan Velluva Kandy, 32, who ran a jewellery bag manufacturing business in Chennai. Once Shameer reached Syria, he stayed in touch with Kandy and others through chat platforms. He guided them with possible routes and the names of agents that could help them intheir journey to Syria.

According to NIA, Kandy flew to Malaysia in June 2016, acting on Shameer’s advice. There, he realised that he could procure a visa for Iran. He immediately returned to India, and in October, he travelled back to Iran with his family. From there, he helped Rashid MV also to move to Iran, taking care of his finances, etcetera. Soon afterwards, two others, Mohammed Shajil (and his family) and Midilaj, joined them via Mangaluru and Dubai. From there, all of them went together to Istanbul, Turkey.

In December, the Turkish authorities apprehended Midilaj and Rashid MV and deported them to India.

In February 2017, Kandy along with his family and Abdul Manaf tried to cross over to Syria through the Turkey- Syria border. Here, the Turkish agencies apprehended