Kashmir in a bid to get in touch with terrorist groups there

The first case of Indians joining IS from Indian soil was reported in 2014 from Kalyan, Maharashtra, when four men from here left for Syria. In May that year, the four flew to Baghdad on the pretext of visiting holy shrines there. From there, they finally sent a message to their parents that they were fighting for IS. In August, one of the four, Areeb Majid, was rumoured to have died. But in November, he contacted his family and revealed that he had escaped to Turkey with bullet injuries. Later, he was deported to India. In custody, he told NIA that the IS leaders did not allow him to join any battle and was instead asked toperform menial tasks like cleaning toilets. The three others who went with him are believed to have died in Syria by 2017.

Since then, many Indians have died while fighting under the banner of the Islamic State.

In January this year, leaders of the Kerala-based extremist Muslim organisation, Popular Front of India (PFI), in Kannur received a message on Telegram from one Abdul Khayoom who is with IS in Syria. Khayoom told them that a man called Abdul Manaf, 30, also from Kannur, was killed in November last year while fighting. He had fled with his wife in 2017 using fake passports. Manaf and a few others were motivated by a PFI leader, Mohammed Shameer, to come to Syria and join IS. Shameer had shifted to Syria in 2015 itself