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31-year-old who worked for IS held in Kochi for collecting explosives
NEW DELHI: Subhani Haja Moideen, hailing from Idukki in Kerala, has not been able to resist the lure of jihad.
NEW DELHI: Subhani Haja Moideen, hailing from Idukki in Kerala, has not been able to resist the lure of jihad.
The 31-year-old, who returned from Islamic State-held Iraq last year after witnessing “unbearable” violence there, was found collecting money and explosives for a group of Indian sympathisers of the terrorist organisation which controls vast territories in Iraq and Syria.
On Wednesday, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested him in Kochi, three days after it took seven of his associates into custody for planning a hit on Jamaat-e-Islami conference in Kochi last month and other terrorist actions, including killing prominent RSS leaders and rationalists in Kerala, and Jewish tourists in Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu.
Moideen is the second Indian, after Mumbai boy, Areeb Majeed, to go to the IS-held territories, fight there and come back to India. Majeed was arrested on his return through Turkey.
According to NIA, Moideen was recruited by the IS after he was radicalised via internet. On the pretext of going on a religious journey, he left for Istanbul in April last year and crossed over to Iraq to join the IS.
There, he was asked to do a course in Islamic jurisprudence and later given combat training for two weeks. He was sent to Mosul to perform security duties at a salary of $100 per month.
A shell attack on Mosul last year, in which two of his friends were charred to death, left him shocked and wanting to leave. On coming to know of this, he was tortured, imprisoned and produced before a person designated as judge by the terror outfit.
For reasons yet to be ascertained, Subhani was allowed to leave IS territory along with five other foreign fighters, the agency said.
Moideen crossed back to Istanbul, and after contacting his family and the Indian consulate, returned to India in September.
He went to his ancestral place Tirunelveli and started a new life with his wife and even got a job as salesman in a jewellery shop, it said.
But soon, he contacted his IS handlers, on whose commands he visited Chennai, Coimbatore and other places to meet local contacts and collect explosives, which led to his arrest, NIA investigators said.
A court has remanded Moideen into NIA’s custody for 14 days. During interrogation, Moideen revealed that his handlers had asked him to get explosives and precursor chemicals from Sivakasi, a cracker manufacturing hub, they said, adding that he will be questioned further at its Kochi office.
