NIA arrests Kerala man accused of joining ISIS after latter is deported from Afghanistan

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Nashidul Hamzafar, an accused in the Islamic State Kasargod case after he was deported to Delhi from Kabul.

Hamzafar, a native of Kerala’s Kalpetta, was detained by Afghan Security Agencies last year for illegally entering the country to join his associates in the Islamic State.

The case relates to the criminal conspiracy hatched by the accused persons from Kasaragod district of Kerala and their associates since Ramadan, 2015, with the intention of joining and furthering the objectives of the Islamic State.

Pursuant to the conspiracy, 14 accused persons from Kasaragod district had left India or their workplaces in the West Asia between mid-May and early-July 2016, before travelling to Afghanistan, where they joined the Islamic State.

Hamzafar had participated in the conspiracy through encrypted social media platforms with the other absconding accused persons in this case like Abdul Rashid Abdulla and Ashfak Majeed who were known to him through his college-mates Shihas, Firoz Khan and Bestin Vincent.

Pursuant to the criminal conspiracy hatched with fugitive Islamic State activist Abdulla, besides Majeed and others, Hamzafar had left India on 3 October, 2017, and travelled to Muscat before travelling to Iran and further reaching Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was detained.

The arrested accused was produced before the Special Court for NIA Cases, New Delhi, on Wednesday, and will now be taken to Kochi on transit remand for producing him before the Special NIA Court, Ernakulam, that had issued a non-bailable warrant against him.

Source: First Post