KOCHI: Referring to the latest UN Report on the presence of a ‘significant number’ of operatives of the so-called Islamic State terror outfit in Kerala and Karnataka, state police chief Loknath Behera on Saturday said, “There is nothing alarming. But we are really concerned. The agencies are on alert and monitoring the development. The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) is tracking the activities of suspected groups which are into IS-related activities in the state.”“It’s a fact that the IS had managed to attract a few people from Kerala to its ranks and already both the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and state police are probing different cases related to IS recruitment in Kerala,” he told TNIE.
According to the UN report, there is a ‘significant number’ of IS terrorists in Kerala and Karnataka. The al-Qaeda terror group in Indian subcontinent reportedly has between 150 and 200 operatives from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar and they are planning attacks in the region. The 26th report of Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team on IS, al-Qaeda and associated individuals and entities, said the al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) operates under the Taliban umbrella from Nimruz, Helmand and Kandahar provinces of Afghanistan. It said, “One member state reported that the Islamic State’s Indian affiliate (Hind Wilayah), which was announced on May 10, 2019, has between 180 and 200 operatives. There is a “significant number of IS operatives in Kerala and Karnataka.”
Kerala woke up to the reality that IS modules were active in the state and recruiting people when 24 people had been reported missing from Kasaragod in June 2016. A subsequent probe revealed that the people had left India on their own to join the IS in Syria and the follow-up probe busted several IS modules in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Reports said while many Malayalis were killed in US drone attacks at IS hideouts in Afghanistan, many people from Kerala were among the hundreds of IS militants who surrendered before the government forces in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province after IS fighters had been overrun in Syria.