Wife of Kerala IS conspirator surrenders in Afghanistan

A woman from Kerala, who had left to join the Islamic State along with her husband Abdul Rashid Abdulla and their two-year-old child in 2016, has surrendered in Afghanistan. She has been identified as Sonia Sebastian, 32, alias Ayisha, a resident of Kasargod in Kerala, reported The Hindu. 

Ayisha has been reportedly identified among the 600-odd Islamic State members, including 225 men, 190 women and 200 children, who surrendered over the past 10 days in Afghanistan. While Abdulla was killed in a US bombing in May this year, the whereabouts of the child are yet to be known.

In 2016, she was among the 21 men and women from Kerala, led by her husband Abdul Rashid Abdulla, who left India in batches to join the Islamic State in Khorasan Province in Afghanistan. They reportedly crossed over to Afghanistan on foot from Iran. Abdulla, who hails from Pala in Kerala Kottayam, had been the main conspirator for Islamic State recruitment from Kerala. 

The NIA has alleged that the “the couple held secret classes in support of IS and jihad, as propagated by it, during the last part of Ramadan, sometimes in the month of July, 2015 in Padanna and Kasaragod". The NIA is yet to file a chargesheet against Ayisha. 

Abdulla, who was a teacher at Peace International School in Kozhikode prior to his departure to Afghanistan, also had a second wife named Yasmin Mohammad Shaheed, who also taught in the same school. Yasmin was convicted last year for recruiting Kerala youths for Islamic State. 

The 21 individuals had joined the Islamic State in Khorasan Province in Afghanistan. Comprising defectors from Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP), the Wilayat Khorasan of the Islamic State in Afghanistan came into existence in 2015. 

Rashid was reportedly killed in May this year following American bombing in Khorasan.