‘Kerala youth who joined IS in 2017 killed’

The sources said they don’t have an official confirmation of the death. But they identified the photograph of “Najeeb Al Hindi” in the latest issue of Voice of Khorasan as that of the youth named Najeeb, a resident of Ponmala in Malappuram district, who was studying

M.Tech in neighbouring Tamil Nadu’s Vellore town.

People close to the family said they had heard about Najeeb’s killing and identified the photograph as his.

Intelligence sources said that in August 2017, a missing persons case had been registered based on a complaint from Najeeb’s mother. “Later, we realised that he had left the country and joined IS in Afghanistan. We don’t know when he was killed in Afghanistan, the only confirmation about his death is the announcement in Voice of Khorasan,’’ a source said.

A friend of Najeeb’s family in Ponmala said they believe the engineering graduate has died. “The family has confirmed the photograph in the publication as that of Najeeb. They had heard about his death in the past as well. The Voice of Khorasan said he was killed months after reaching Afghanistan,” the family friend said.

Weeks after Najeeb went missing in July-August 2017, he reportedly sent a Telegram app message to his family that he had escaped from among the kafirs (unbelievers) and soon would become a shaheed (martyr). “There is no meaning in living with kafirs and I have escaped from the world of kafirs,” said the message.

The police probe that followed revealed that Najeeb had left India to join IS.