NIA clueless on Sabir's whereabouts
Religious extremism is back in focus with the verdict of the Kashmir recruitment case to be pronounced on Friday.
However, intelligence agencies are yet to make any headway in the arrest of key accused Kochu Peedikayil Sabir alias K P Sabir alias Ayub of Marakkarkandy, Kannur, who laid the foundation stone for terrorist activities in the state.
Recently, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had made a move for his deportation from Saudi Arabia, but failed when they could not find his trail in the Kingdom. Since November 2008, the intelligence agencies have no information about Sabir. They suspect that he escaped to a Gulf country from Mumbai using a fake passport and is now in Pakistan. Sabir had recruited Thadiyantavide Nazeer.
He had joined the Islamic Service Society (ISS) and other political parties and is suspected to have a role in the Kalamassery bus burning case. He, along with Nazeer, had founded the Jam-Iyyathul Ansarul Muslimeen (JIAM), the Kerala module of LeT which carried out Bangalore bomb blast in 2008.
He has close links with the LeT leadership and used to take recruits for training in Kashmir. According to a National Investigating Agency report submitted at the NIA Special Court, Nazeer, on the directions of Sabir, had conducted tareeqat classes from 2006 at different places in the state like Neerchal, Poothapara, Kanjangadu, Karutha Makkathu, Chettipady, Kalamassery and Kannur, and taken some of the trainees to Hyderabad.
Finally, five of these trainees were zeroed in for LeT training in Kashmir.
Four were killed in an encounter in Jammu Kashmir. The fifth one, Abdul Jabbar, escaped and returned to Kerala in 2008.
As per the NIA report, Sabir, along with his wife, had arranged for the recruits’ stay in New Delhi.
LeT leaders M H Faizal, Nazeer and Ummar Farooq had gone to Delhi from Hyderabad along with the five recruitees.
Sabir arranged for their stay and took the recruits to Kashmir and handed them to a person called Umair Kashmiri, an LeT leader and trainer.
Following the encounter killing, LeT commander Abdul Wali made arrangements for Nazeer to escape to Bangladesh, as his photograph had appeared in the media along with the killed youths.