The UAE has deported four Indians suspected to have links with the Islamic State (IS) and is expected to send back 4 more people suspected of similar links, reflecting growing cooperation by the Gulf country in the fight against terror.
The deportation comes close on the heels of UAE sending back 37-year-old Afsha Jabeen alias Nicky Joseph who was allegedly involving in recruiting youth for ISIS and was arrested last week. The four people deported on Tuesday were placed under arrest upon their arrival at Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram airports and another batch of four is expected to arrive soon, official sources said.
The government will then take a call on whether to hand over all these cases to National Investigation Agency (NIA), which dedicatedly deals with terror cases, or allow the state police to probe.
These Indians have not yet been accused of being involved in any terror activities but were in regular touch with two persons who were in the Gulf and had joined the ISIS. One of them – a Bangladeshi national – has already died while fighting for the ISIS, while the whereabouts of the other — an Indian – are not known, the sources said.
The group told the interrogators, both in the UAE as well as in Kerala, they were in touch with the two men who had joined ISIS, out of curiosity towards the terror group, the sources said.
They are being jointly interrogated by central and state security agencies. The sources also said these nine Indians, with suspected ISIS links, were identified to UAE authorities who acted promptly. Earlier in January, Salman Mohiuddin of Hyderabad was arrested when he was preparing to board a flight to Dubai on way to Syria via Turkey.