Hafsiya sent the voice message to her relatives to convey the news of the death of her husband, Shajil, a native of Echoor.Kannur: In a major breakthrough, the police have claimed that they got evidence of Keralites joining the Islamic State (IS) and fighting for the banned terror outfit in war-torn Syria.
About 100 Keralites are suspected to have joined the Islamic State over the years, the police said here on Saturday.
The Kerala Police has collected evidence in this regard, including over 300 voice clips and messages from WhatsApp, telegram messaging applications and other social media platforms, sources here told PTI.
In one of those audio clips a woman reveals that her husband died in Syria fighting for the IS.
Hafsiya sent the voice message to her relatives to convey the news of the death of her husband, Shajil, a native of Echoor. According to the audio clip, she and her two children are still in Syria, the sources said. The voice clip was received by Shajil's brother.
Deputy superintendent of police (DySP), Kannur, Sadananadan said Hafsiya is heard crying in the audio clip. There were reports that Shajil was killed in Syria.
Hafsiya, in the message, says several Keralite women, who lost their kin in the war, were in Syria along with their children. The cops also got an audio clip in which Shjail's friend Manaf, a native of Valapattanom, speaks to his friend in Kerala. Manaf tells his friend that he would repay the amount Shajil owed him.
In another audio clip, accessed by the police, Qayyum, a native of Cheruvathalamotta tells his relatives that he could be killed any time. He says he is in a war zone in Syria.
The police said Khayyum has made his photograph in the IS uniform as his profile picture of Telegram, a messaging app.
Meanwhile, the police have confirmed that Rashid and Mithilaj, two of the five youths arrested for suspected links with the IS, had visited Syria. Another youth, Manaf Rahman, was stopped at Mangaluru airport while trying to fly to Syria along with his wife and five children. They had booked the tickets through two travel agencies in Thalassery.
It is suspected that the radicalized youths got attracted to the terror group when they were associated with the Wisdom group in the Gulf. However, the group is learnt to have no links with the IS and it has also made clear its stance against the terror outfit, the DySP said.
The National Investigation Agency is probing cases of disappearance of at least 21 people who had left Kerala under mysterious circumstances over a period of time and are suspected to have joined ISIS.
Among them, 17 are from Kasaragod and four from Palakkad. They include four women and three children.
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