In Kerala, the police investigation into the radicalisation of a 15-year-old boy at the hands of his own mother has revealed some disturbing details, and possibilities of a wider network operating by online indoctrination.
As per a report by NDTV, Kerala Police’s FIR in the case shows that the 15-year-old was indoctrinated into ISIS ideology and violent methods with the express participation and encouragement by his own mother, a woman named Fida Mohammad Ali.
The FIR, filed under UAPA, names Fida, and another person named Anzar, who lives in Leicester, UK, and is reprotedly a member of ISIS. Anzar had reportedly shown graphic videos of ISIS executing people and told him that is the ‘greatest path of Islam’. Anzar had reportedly been grooming the boy to embrace the ISIS ideology and accept that other religions deserve hostility and violence.
The boy’s indoctrination occurred with active encouragement and participation from her mother, Fida Muhammad Ali, the police FIR says.
The case was filed at the Venjaramoodu Police Station earlier this week, when the boy’s relatives were alerted by his teachers of a sudden change in behaviour and activities. The boy’s mother had separated from his biological father and went on to convert to Islam and marry a Anzar from Vembayam. The couple had moved to the UK, and after returning to Kerala, they had enrolled the boy in a madrasa in Attingal.
The biological father of the boy wants the custody of the child, and he had approached the police with details of indoctrination and attempts to radicalise his son. Fida and Anzar had left for the UK again, after leaving the boy at the Attingal madrasa.
The police also says that preliminary investigation in the case also hints at a wider network, sugegsting sleeper elements in the state may be actively recruiting and radicalising vulnerable young people. Anzar’s brother Siddhiqul was convicted in the 2016 Kanakamala ISIS conspiracy case, where 8 persons were chargesheeted for plotting terror attacks in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Anzar could not be charged because he was living in Ukraine at that time.
The NIA is preparing to take up the investigation into the network, and might request the Interpol for Anzar’s deportation too, as per reports.