Kochi: The Keralite youths, who were arrested for their alleged links with ISIS, confessed to the NIA that they were inspired by the lectures of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was the spokesman of al-Qaeda and was also known as 'online bin Laden'.
The youths revealed about al-Awlaki's lectures during an interrogation by the NIA.
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The six youths, who were arrested from Kannur, deposed before the NIA that they used to hear the lectures of al-Awlaki and this prompted them to work for ISIS.
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al-Awlaki was killed in 2011 in a US-led strike.
Keralite youths used encrypted app to send messages
The NIA suspects that the youths had shared parts of al-Awlaki’s speeches through chat application Telegram. Meanwhile, the NIA has approached the court to get permission to retrieve messages from the phone of Rashid, who was among the youths arrested from Kannur.
In normal circumstances, when a phone is seized the SIM card and battery are removed. The data can be checked without switching on the phone.
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However, the phone has to be switched on and a one-time password (OTP) generated to make a chat application like Telegram function. The NIA has filed a writ petition in the court for getting permission to do this.