A failed Indo-US operation to stop a radicalised Maldivian family of 12 from flying out from Bengaluru in December last year to join the Islamic State in Syria has brought into focus once again the worrying trend of jihadists using India as a transit point and the neighbouring nation of islands turning into a hotbed of extremism.
The operation that lasted nearly 100 hours and had a team of Mumbai police hot on the family’s tail was called off after the 12 managed to get on Qatar Airways flight QR 673 to Istanbul via Doha on December 13. They were last tracked in Istanbul of January 13, when they are suspected to have dumped their phones before leaving either for Iraq or Syria.
While the family was of special interest to the US because one of them, Abdulla Mubarak, is a certified pilot from Miami Federal Aviation Administration Department and could be used for a 9/11-type operation by IS, or Daesh as the group is referred to, for India the threat is long-term – the risk of a neighbouring country turning into Jihadi outpost.
The family’s arrival in Bengaluru on December 7 on a health visa and their eventual exit would have gone un-noticed, had the US intelligence agencies had not alerted their Indian counterparts, sparking off a chase that was monitored in two countries, involved multiple agencies, and had some of India’s seniormost police and intelligence officials on their toes.
Mumbai Police Commissioner Datta Padsalgikar, who was at the centre of the operation, on Thursday confirmed that the Maldivian family was tracked by his men for several days. “We had received information about the Maldivian family transiting via Bengaluru and possibly crossing over to Iraq through Turkey,” he said, but refused to elaborate citing on-going investigations and privileged information.
Though the family — four sisters, three brothers, their children, two of their cousins, and another man whose relation with the family intelligence agencies have not been able to establish — entered India on medical visas, the investigating teams have found that none of them visited any hospital or medical facility during the time they spent here.
Indian and US intelligence officials together now have a fat dossier on the family. Five members of the family from the Gaaf Alif Atoll, Kondey Island, Male were radicalised by a Male-based organisation called Jamiatul Salafi. The five have been identified as Abdulla Mubarak (the trained pilot) 30; Muizz Hasan, 28; Ahmed Azmeer, 32; Zoona Zareer, 27; and Zahida Zareer, 30.
Indian officers have information that the family’s head Mohammad Isa had tried to raise a red flag by lodging a complaint with the local Male authorities. However, nobody paid heed to his complaint. The family, before leaving Male, sold off its assets to contribute financially to the IS.
The 12 arrived in India on Air India flight AI 266 on December 3 and spent 10 days in the country before leaving for Istanbul. It is possible that some members of the family may have visited other parts of the country before the Indian agencies were alerted about their presence in Bengaluru.
According to Inspector Sachin Waze, who worked in close collaboration with American agencies on the operation, said the information about the family came to Mumbai police through an intermediary. “We were asked to rush to Bengaluru to intercept the family. But by the time we reached the airport, they had already left for Turkey on a Qatar Airways flight,” he said.
Maldives, which lies to the southwest of India and Sri Lanka, has a small population of 3,94,000 and tourism is the country’s mainstay. While for decades the country looked at India as a compassionate neighbour, the sentiment has changed dramatically over the past few years. “The radical Maldivians now look at us as kafir harbi (the warring infidel nation). Indian intelligence agencies feel that the radicals trained by ISIS will only return to harm us and inflict violence,” said a senior officer, who works closely with US agencies.
According to an estimate, over 150 Maldivians have already joined the Daesh forces in Syria and Iraq and they are all regarded as part of the extremist organisation’s Al Hind Brigade.
Religious extremism in the Maldives flourished during former president Mamoon Abdul Gayoom’s 30-year rule. It was he who introduced Salafi Islam to this tiny Island nation. Educated in Egypt at the Al-Azhar University of Cairo, his politics and faith were defined by what he learnt during his student days. He changed the face of the easy-going Maldivian nation by making its people more conservative and vulnerable to religious radicalism.
