THE VEILED THREAT
A spate of conversions to radical Islam has Kerala worried. Evangelical outfits are now on the radar of security agencies
On August 11, the Kerala police arrested two people who were recruiting a 21-yearold girl for an unusual task. She was to go and fight as a foot soldier for the Islamic State in Yemen. Thirty-eight-year-old Sheena Farzana and 28-year-old Naser, volunteers of Sathyasarani, a Muslim charitable trust run by the radical outfit Popular Front of India (PFI), were arrested on charges of abduction of the 21-year-old (name withheld) from Cherpulassery town in Palakkad district.
Police say the girl, a Hindu, was ‘influenced’ into converting to Islam while working at a private firm in Perinthalmanna, Malappuram district. Officials say P. Noufal (now in Yemen) of Perinthalmanna was her initial handler before Naser, a member of Sathyasarani’s Da’wa squad (wandering proselytisers), took over. “Noufal led her to believe that heaven was possible only if she lived like a true Muslim…and fought for Islam,” says A.R. Ajithkumar, IGP, Thrissur range.
The state police has alerted Interpol regarding Noufal’s role in ISIS recruitments in the state. But records of a spate of such cases over the past few weeks has created ripples across Kerala. It began with the sensational disappearance of 21 people in July this year. Members of five families (all of whom knew each other), they left from north Kerala and boarded flights to Iran and have apparently crossed over to ISIS-controlled territory in Afghanistan. Among them was Nimisha, 23, a Hindu girl from Thiruvananthapuram, studying to be a dentist. She had embraced Islam, changed her name to Fatima, and married Bexton, a Catholic, who had converted in 2015. Her mother, K. Bindu, has had no news since they left home on May 28. “I don’t know where my daughter has gone. I just want her back home okay,” Bindu told india today.
Stories like these have given Kerala’s urban ‘love jehad’ legend—supposedly ‘entrapped’ conversions to Islam—a new and dangerous spin. Certainly, it has forced the police into action. The ‘ISIS 21’ were charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), usually reserved for terrorist organisations, on August 4. The state intelligence branch has also prepared a report on the conversions. The report, accessed by india today, reveals that between 2011 and 2015, 5,975 people in the state converted to Islam; 1,410 did so last year alone. An overwhelming number, 76 per cent, of the new converts are women below 35, like Nimisha. In January-February this year, 224 Hindus and 60 Christians converted to Islam at a rate of roughly three new converts a day.
Most such cases were not investigated in the past because there were no complaints after the courts dismissed the missing person plaints filed by the parents. The 21-year-old from the latest case was traced to the Sathyasarani trust premises in Cherani village,
non-Muslims and radicalising them,” an official says. Baqavi denies the charges and clarifies that his organisation is against the IS and terror activities. “We have been here for the last 18 years,” he says. “But now a section of the media and Hindu fundamentalist forces are attacking us, saying there’s large-scale conversion to Islam.”
The police say most missing cases investigations end up at these religious centres. “When we raid the centres, they produce the girl before the court and make a public statement that she wilfully converted. If there is no crime, the police has no role,” a senior police official points out. The majority of the converted women then practically disappear, according to the police, behind the veil of a burqa. Their families are unable to trace them and they are given up for dead. The women also wipe out any traces of their old identity—they change names, destroy passports and old signatures. All of which makes it that much more difficult for security agencies to track them down later.
On July 28, the Kerala police arrested Arshid Qureshi, guest relationship officer at Zakir Naik’s IRF, and another person, Rizwan, from Mumbai. They were arrested on the basis of an FIR lodged in Kochi by Merin Jacob’s brother Ebin Jacob, after she went missing with her husband Yahya (part of the ‘ISIS 21’). Jacob alleges that Merin was forcibly converted by Qureshi and Bestin Vincent alias Yahya. The remand report states that the duo converted Merin in September 2014 and recruited her for IS. Rizwan, 53, the third accused, allegedly facilitated the conversion and marriage.
Kochi range IGP S. Sreejith says investigations found that Arshid has
“KERALA’S RICH PROGRESSIVE TRADITION IS ERODING FAST. WE HAVE TO REORIENT OUR YOUTH AGAINST A FRAGMENTED MINORITY SECT THAT IS DESTABILISING OUR COMMUNAL HARMONY”
DR B. IQBAL, Planning Board member engineered around 800 conversions in Mumbai, and also conducted 113 marriages in the past three years. The Kerala police is now investigating the IRF’s role in recent conversions in the state. Officials say they are also tracking the fund sources of around 10 organisations (including Niche of Truth, Sathyasarani, Peace Education Trust, Salafi centres in Kochi and Kozhikode) in the same cases.
Another link popped up after police from north Kerala’s Kasargod district arrested Yasmin, 29, from Bihar’s Sitamarhi district, when she tried to fly to Kabul to join the others gone missing from the state. Yasmin was working at three centres of the Peace International School till last December and had close links with Abdul Rashid of Trikaripur village (in Kasargod), who is missing with his family and helped the ‘ISIS 21’ fly abroad.
M.M. Akbar, a popular Islamic orator and managing trustee of the Peace International schools, is baffled by his staff’s involvement with the IS. “I’ve taken a consistent stand against radicalisation of Islam. Abdul Rashid was a master trainer of teachers in our organisation, but we had no idea about his IS links,” Akbar told
india today. But the police and National Investigation Agency are leaving nothing to chance: Akbar’s organisations and funding sources are also now under the scanner.
State Planning Board member and ex-Kerala University vice-chancellor Dr B. Iqbal blames it on the ‘Saudi Arabiasation’ of Islam in Kerala. “Kerala society always had a rich progressive tradition of living in communal harmony. But that shield is eroding fast. We have to reorient our youth against a fragmented minority sect that is destabilising our communal harmony. Our campuses must be vigilant, democratic students’ organisations can play a role here,” he says.
The Kerala conversions controversy has been going on for some time now. In the 2009 Shahan Sha case, then Kerala High Court Justice K.T. Sankaran had even directed the state to consider appropriate legislation to make ‘forced conversions’ an offence. In his verdict, the judge had pointed out, “It is clear that this is being done with the blessings of some outfits...this should be of great concern to the people at large and to the government.” DGP Jacob Punnoose had then submitted a report in the HC denying that ‘love jehad’ existed on campuses in Kerala. Clearly, warnings were ignored.