The State police are examining a recent video purportedly by a Keralite woman who allegedly defected to the Islamic State (IS) in 2015 and now wants the government to help her return home from Afghanistan.
Officers say the woman in the video could be Nimisha Fathima, a resident of Thiruvananthapuram, who went missing along with her husband Isa, alias Bexin Vincent, in 2015. Nimisha is a trained dentist. The police believe that the couple converted to Islam, got radicalised, and travelled to Afghanistan to join the IS. She delivered of a baby in that country.
Arrested in 2019
Officers believe that an allied bombing killed her husband and the law enforcement agency in Khorasan province arrested her in 2019.
In the video, the woman appears seated on a sofa. She sports a headscarf and cradles a child on her lap. She speaks in English and says she would like to return home and hopes the government would not imprison her.
The possibility that Nimisha might be alive first surfaced in 2019 when the National Investigation Agency (NIA) called on her mother, Bindu Sampath, and showed her a set of photographs of foreign fighters and their families in the custody of the Afghanistan government.
Mother seeks help
Ms. Sampath told journalists here on Monday that the woman in the video is her daughter and that she would move the Central government to ensure Nimisha’s return. “I am seeing my daughter alive for the first time after she left me,” she said.
Officials said Nimisha could face formidable legal hurdles to return to civilian life in the country. The NIA is investigating her on charges of violating the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Passport Act. Moreover, security agencies are wary of allowing former IS members into society out of fear that they could radicalise others.
The police say Central agencies have flagged the possibility that Sonia Sebastian, 33, alias Ayisha, a resident of Kasaragod who joined the IS along with her husband in 2014, could be with Nimisha. They were among several Malayalees who left Kerala in groups to join the IS in Syria and Afghanistan during 2014-16.
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