Kerala Islamists’ organized campaign to lure and convert non Muslim girls; 940 girls missing in Kerala in the past five years

Saturday, August 29, 2009 | Email | Print |

Islamists on conversion campaign

VR Jayaraj | Kochi

Islamists in Kerala have launched an organised campaign for converting girls belonging to other religions into Islam. Police believe that Islamist organisation NDF (presently Popular Front of India) and its student outfit Campus Front could be behind this campus-based campaign. An investigation is presently on into the matter on the instructions of the Kerala High Court.

Information about this planned campaign came out in the open after two girls in an MBA college in Pathanam-thitta, who had gone missing some days ago, were produced in the HC on a habeas corpus petition. Girls told the court that they were taken to a place in Kozhikode, where a group led by Campus Front activists Shehenshah and Sirajuddeen forced them to convert into Islam and sign marriage contracts.

Lawyer Muhammad Ansari, who appeared in the court for the Government, said there was a planned effort behind the forced conversion of the girls into Islam. In a petition, Jacob Thomas of Pallikkal, Kottarakkara, Kollam and K Madhavan of Peroorkada, Thiruvananth-apruam, parents of the girls, had alleged that their daughters were detained by one Shehansha of Pettah, Pathana-mthitta. Girls were doing a project after completing MBA.

The girls had left their homes informing the parents that they were going to convert into Islam. However, when they were produced in the court on the habeas corpus petition, they said that they were forced to convert into Islam in a deserted house at West Chelari, Kozhikode district where they were taken. Though the court sent the girls with their parents, it ruled that they could be taken to their homes but no restriction should be placed on their food and prayer.

According to Gopakumar, assistant commissioner of police, Cantonment, Thiruva-nanthapuram, who is in charge of the investigation into the campaign of the extremists to convert girls into Islam, as many as 940 girls had gone missing in Kerala in the past five years. He said the truth behind these cases could be brought only after probe.

The police are now in the process of verifying the reports that some Hindu organisations are preparing to counter the Islamists’ designs. A report regarding this would be submitted in the High Court early next month.

However, sources in the police refused to confirm reports regarding an Islamic group specialising in luring young girls for converting into Islam. Reports had appeared in a section of the media in January last that religious Romeos had converted more than 4,000 girls through such designs.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Islamists on conversion campaign

VR Jayaraj | Kochi

Islamists in Kerala have launched an organised campaign for converting girls belonging to other religions into Islam. Police believe that Islamist organisation NDF (presently Popular Front of India) and its student outfit Campus Front could be behind this campus-based campaign. An investigation is presently on into the matter on the instructions of the Kerala High Court.

Information about this planned campaign came out in the open after two girls in an MBA college in Pathanam-thitta, who had gone missing some days ago, were produced in the HC on a habeas corpus petition. Girls told the court that they were taken to a place in Kozhikode, where a group led by Campus Front activists Shehenshah and Sirajuddeen forced them to convert into Islam and sign marriage contracts.

Lawyer Muhammad Ansari, who appeared in the court for the Government, said there was a planned effort behind the forced conversion of the girls into Islam. In a petition, Jacob Thomas of Pallikkal, Kottarakkara, Kollam and K Madhavan of Peroorkada, Thiruvananth-apruam, parents of the girls, had alleged that their daughters were detained by one Shehansha of Pettah, Pathana-mthitta. Girls were doing a project after completing MBA.

The girls had left their homes informing the parents that they were going to convert into Islam. However, when they were produced in the court on the habeas corpus petition, they said that they were forced to convert into Islam in a deserted house at West Chelari, Kozhikode district where they were taken. Though the court sent the girls with their parents, it ruled that they could be taken to their homes but no restriction should be placed on their food and prayer.

According to Gopakumar, assistant commissioner of police, Cantonment, Thiruva-nanthapuram, who is in charge of the investigation into the campaign of the extremists to convert girls into Islam, as many as 940 girls had gone missing in Kerala in the past five years. He said the truth behind these cases could be brought only after probe.

The police are now in the process of verifying the reports that some Hindu organisations are preparing to counter the Islamists’ designs. A report regarding this would be submitted in the High Court early next month.

However, sources in the police refused to confirm reports regarding an Islamic group specialising in luring young girls for converting into Islam. Reports had appeared in a section of the media in January last that religious Romeos had converted more than 4,000 girls through such designs.

Kerala cops launch massive hunt for Islamic terrorists of extremist Muslim outfit, NDF

Islamic Terrorist organization National Development Front

From The Hindu

NDF recruitment agents for extremist groups: CPI(M)
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): The CPI(M) in Kerala on Friday alleged that little-known Muslim group National Development Front (NDF) has turned into a recruiting agency for extremist organisations. “This is not a small thing. The Union government should investigate the terrorist link of NDF,” state party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said during a book release function here.

“Though the terrorists are Indians, they are loyal to the people who want to destroy the nation. They get funds from foreign country and also arms training,” Vijayan claimed. He demanded that NDF’s fund source should be probed.

NDF under scanner as hunt on for jihadis in Kerala
VR Jayaraj | Kannur, Saturday, October 25, 2008, dailypioneer.com

The newly-formed anti-terrorist squad of the Kerala Police and the intelligence department on Friday launched a massive hunt for operatives of Islamist resistance outfit National Development Front (NDF) after they confirmed several of its activists had links with terror elements outside the State.

The search for such operatives had begun after the police were convinced of this with the arrest of NDF activist Abdul Jaleel of Edakkad, Kannur, on Sunday, even as top police officials said that an intense probe was necessary with the possibility that Kerala could have become a recruitment base for terror outfits outside the State.

A large number of NDF activists in Kannur district were under police scanner for their suspected links with terror groups. The investigators have intensified surveillance on NDF workers in Kannur, Malappuram, Kozhikode and Ernakulam districts on the basis of information provided by Jaleel, who had received calls on his mobile phone till October 5 from one or both of the Malayalee militants killed in Lolab, Kashmir on October 7.

The NDF, campaigning in Kerala as an Islamic resistance force, could have of late become an outfit from which terror operatives were being recruited, sources in the police said. They confirmed that the focus now was indeed on the NDF as the persons arrested or questioned so far had some connection with the outfit.

Apart from the police investigation on the NDF, political parties of the State also launched an offensive against the Islamist outfit. CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said on Friday that NDF had perhaps become an agency recruiting operatives for terror outfits outside the State and that it had started sending such recruits for training outside India.

Police sources said they were focusing more on persons who were not there where they were supposed to be than on people who were obviously there. “Look for the absent factor. That is the way to fix this problem to some extent. This is because there is a strong feeling that those missing are engaged in terror operations somewhere else,” said a police official.

He said a trend of missing of Muslim youth had been noticed of late in the State, especially in Kannur district. Almost all these young men had some links with NDF, he added.

Chettippady village near Parappanangadi in Muslim-majority Malappuram district saw hectic police activity on Friday as they searched for the details of Omar Farooq, a friend and associate of Abdul Raheem, who along with Faiz, a friend of Kannur’s Jaleel, was killed in Kashmir on October 7 by the security forces. Like Raheem, who too hailed from the same village, Omar was also an accused in the case related to the burning of a Tamil Nadu State bus at Kalamassery near Kochi in September 2005.

Omar, who was in Chettippady till October 10, had been missing since then. The police searched Omar’s house as well as a mobile phone shop from where he had arranged for fake identity documents for getting a SIM card.

During the search for Omar at Chettippady, the police found that Raheem’s brother-in-law (sister’s husband) Adul Razaq (26), of Neduva in Parappanagadi, also had been missing for the past 30 months. Razaq’s father had lodged a complaint about this with the Parappanangadi police on October 16.

According to Raheem’s sister, her husband, a hotel worker, had left home almost two-and-a-half years ago to work in Kottakkal in Malappuram district itself. Since then he had been missing. The police, who were examining whether he had any links with extremists, said he too was suspected to have been an NDF worker.

According to unconfirmed reports, the police in Kannur had detained more than 60 NDF activists for interrogation. The interrogation was in progress at a secret station, it was said. Sources said many of these detained NDF workers had connections with Jaleel.  End