The Veiled Threat

A spate of conversions to radical Islam has Kerala worried. Evangelical outfits are now on the radar of security agencies.

- Jeemon Jacob

On August 11, the Kerala police arrested two people who were recruiting a 21-year old girl for an unusual task. She was to go and fight as a foot soldier for the Islamic State in Yemen. Thirty-eight-year-old Sheena Farzana and 28-year-old Naser, volunteers of Sathyasarani, a Muslim charitable trust run by the radical outfit Popular Front of India (PFI), were arrested on charges of abduction of the 21-year-old (name withheld) from Cherpulassery town in Palakkad district.

Police say the girl, a Hindu, was ‘influenced’ into converting to Islam while working at a private firm in Perinthalmanna, Malappuram district. Officials say P. Noufal (now in Yemen) of Perinthal manna was her initial handler before Naser, a member of Sathyasarani’s Da’wa squad (wandering proselytisers), took over. “Noufal led her to believe that heaven was possible only if she lived like a true Muslim…and fought for Islam,” says A.R. Ajithkumar, IGP, Thrissur range.

The state police has alerted Interpol regarding Noufal’s role in ISIS recruitments in the state. But records of a spate of such cases over the past few weeks has created ripples across Kerala. It began with the sensational disappearance of 21 people in July this year. Members of five families (all of whom knew each other), they left from north Kerala and boarded flights to Iran and have apparently crossed over to ISIS-controlled territory in Afghanistan. Among them was Nimisha, 23, a Hindu girl from Thiruvananthapuram, studying to be a dentist. She had embraced Islam, changed her name to Fatima, and married Bexton, a Catholic, who had converted in 2015. Her mother, K. Bindu, has had no news since they left home on May 28. “I don’t know where my daughter has gone. I just want her back home okay,” Bindu told India Today.