KOCHI: Throwing up a big challenge to enforcement agencies, women from Kerala, who had gone with their family members to Afghanistan and Yemen, allegedly to join Islamic State (IS) in Syria, have started to return to Kerala.
A woman has already reached Kasargod where she approached the police two weeks ago complaining that her husband, who was still camping in Yemen, refused to allow her to take her two children when she decided to head back home.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) were analysing the development as there were inputs that a large number of women and minors who have been part of the groups camping in different regions of Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria are returning to their homes after the fall of IS in its strongholds.
“While male members of the group are reluctant to return, females and children are heading back to their home countries. The UK and the US have upped the surveillance in the wake of a few women making attempts to return to Britain,” said a senior intelligence officer.
Kasargod District Police Chief in-charge K M Tomy confirmed receiving the complaint from the woman seeking support to get her two children from her husband’s custody. “We spoke to women in detail and have taken up the matter with higher-ups,” he said.
Refusing to divulge more details about the woman, intelligence officers said they had done debriefing of the woman. “Usually, none is allowed to leave the group. But in the woman’s case, her husband allowed her to return. As per our initial assessment, the group in which the woman belonged to was camping in Yemen. They claimed that they were in Yemen for religious studies,” officers said.
The agencies are keeping close watch as a study report of International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College London found that “4,761 (13 per cent) of 41,490 foreign citizens who became affiliated with IS in Iraq and Syria between April 2013 and June 2018 were women.”
The report said “850 British citizens became affiliated with IS in Iraq and Syria, which included 145 women and 50 minors.” Another officer said “We can expect more women and minors reaching back after living in IS strongholds.”
It was in June 2018 that 11 people, including six children and three women from Kasargod, were reported missing by one of the father of a woman in the group. Though one of the members in the group claimed that they had left for Yemen for religious studies, there were no further information about them. Earlier in July 2016, 13 people from Kasargod and eight from Palakkad were reported missing under similar circumstances but were later traced to an Islamic State (IS) group in Afghanistan.
Study report to agencies’ aid
The agencies are keeping close watch as a study report of International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College London found that “4,761 (13 per cent) of 41,490 foreign citizens who became affiliated with IS in Iraq and Syria between April 2013 and June 2018 were women.”