No country for jihad preachers

Ashfak Abdul Majid, the 25-year-old Nagpada resident, who fled the country with his wife and daughter in June 2016 to join ISIS, had allegedly tried to propagate jihad in neighbouring Sri Lanka. However Ashfak, his mentors and associates were forced by authorities to leave the educational centre.

This was revealed in the chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday against Arshi Qureshi - relationship manager of Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) and is accused of brainwashing Ashfak- and wanted accused Abdul Rashid Abdulla, senior employee of Peace Foundation, Kozhikode on Thursday in the special NIA court.

Fled last year
Qureshi was booked on the complaint of Nagpada resident Abdul Majid, Ashfak's father. Ashfak, a Kerala native, along with his wife and 18-month-old daughter had fled the country on June 2, 2016 to Tehran from Mumbai (via Dubai) to further join ISIS.

In its chargesheet, NIA stated that during the investigation, they found that Ashfak had visited religious study centre Ad-dur Salffiya (Al-Qama) in Negombo, Sri Lanka along with his wife and daughter for religious studies on February 28, 2016.

Religious retreat
Kerala natives Bestin alias Yahiya, his wife Merrin alias Mariyam, Abdul Rashid, his wife Ayisha, daughter Sara were also in Sri Lanka for the studies.

NIA stated that Ashfak, Bestin and Abdul Rashid Abdulla had started propagating ISIS ideology and their views on jihad among students at the centre. But when the teacher noticed it, they were expelled from the centre. Following this, all three families had returned to India in April 2016.

NIA says that it was this time when conspiracy to travel for Hijrah (migration for the sake of Allah) by all these people took shape. After this Ashfak, his wife, daughter and other Kerala youths with the help of Abdul Rashid Abdulla left the country to join ISIS.