Another Islamic State Fighter From Kerala, A Former Popular Front Of India Worker, Killed In Syria

An Islamic State (IS) fighter from Kerala’s Valapattanam has bee killed in Syria, the Times of India has reported.

According to the report, the youth, identified as Abdul Manaf, was killed in November 2017. The news of his death was conveyed to Manaf’s family by another IS recruit from the state, identified by the police as Abdul Khayyoom.

So far, at least 17 recruits from the state have been killed while fighting for the IS in Syria, the police has said. Six of these fighters were from Kannur.

According to the police, Manaf went to Syria using a fake passport. He was reportedly a close associate of Shahjahan Velluva, another IS operative who was arrested from Delhi a few months ago after being deported from Turkey on his third attempt to cross into territory held by Islamic extremists in the region.

Before being recruited by IS, Mafan was working as an office secretary for the Popular Front of India (PFI), a known Islamist outfit operating primarily in the southern states of India. Former Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, speaking in the state assembly in 2010, had said that the PFI was aiming for ‘Islamisation’.

In July 2010, 13 activists of the PFI had chopped off the hand of a professor in Kerala, accusing him of blasphemy against Islam. In March 2016, the National Investigation Agency arrested a person named K V Abdul Jaleel in relation to what is called the Narath training camp case. Jaleel was accused of assembling 21 men in April 2013 and training them in making bombs. Some of these men were members of the PFI. In August 2017, the Karnataka police arrested five people for the murder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker, Sharat Madivala. All five were directly or indirectly related to the Islamist outfit.