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A new Jihadi whatsapp group among young Muslims in Kerala police has surfaced. The now deleted group was named Pacha Velicham 2.0, a second iteration of the original Pacha Velicham that was reported in January. While the first was centred in Adoor, this one was centred around Ernakulam and Kottayam. Two Rural SI who were the group leaders were identified by NIA as radicals. One was suspended and the other is under watch.
The group was deleted immediately before the murder of Abhimanyu by SDPI goons. The members of the group are suspected to be the ones who leaked information about police sweeps in order to help the culprits escape.
This report from Janam TV says that in the State police intelligence, posts under the ADGP have a disproportionately high number of recruits from a certain community.
Three months since the alleged rape and murder of a Muslim girl by Hindus in Kathua, Kashmir, there was an campaign in the mainstream and social media against the crime. But it spiralled out of control on 16 April 2018 when peaceful protests organised via social media by all communities in Kerala got hijacked by Jihadis. The hartal was worst in the Malabar region. Takbir slogans were raised, police were pelted with stones, roads blocked and only Muslims allowed to pass, Hindu owned shops were trashed and looted. The looting of K.R Bakers in Tanur earned the hartal the nickname "Onnam bakery lahala"(first bakery mutiny).
This hartal showcased the effectiveness of social media in organising sudden protests. Although claimed to be spontaneous, this hartal is suspected to be a planned rehearsal or a "testing the waters" for an Islamist uprising in the future.
Even though many political parties had backed the hartal, the most notable aspect was that the active and violent ones were all Muslims and they acted as one across party lines. SDPI, Youth League amd DYFI workers were seen acting together.
ISIS link
The first connection of IS came in the form of online posters with the name Aadhil AX inciting protests for the victim. This ID was the IS handler for Kerala, Shajeer Mangalasseri Abdulla. Audio clips of Rashid Abdulla, another IS handler and recruiter that incited jihad were also circulated. It is assumable that the hartal was hijacked by his followers in Kerala who operate in Jihadi front groups like SDPI and PFI.
Police Response
The response of the police was quite lacking. They were caught completely unaware and later admitted that there was an intelligence failure. In many places the police remained helpless and suffered stone-pelting, assault and man-handling. There was an attempt to drag a policeman into a mosque to create a false event of police excess towards their faith. Riot police had to be deployed in many places and lathi charges were carried out.
Around 1500 who directly took part in the violence were arrested but the investigation into how this hartal turned violent, was botched from the beginning. The police arrested five non-Muslim admins of a Whatsapp group created to organise the peaceful hartal while the Islamists who hijacked it escaped. With the LDF in power, there is a possibility that the police investigation was subverted to help the Left-Islamist agenda.
Media Coverage
Except for a few Hindu right wing media groups, the mainstream media tried their best to cover up the Islamist violence and destruction. They had used terms like Whatsapp hartal and Social Media hartal to describe it instead of Islamist hartal or anti-Hindu hartal. With the arrested five being non-Muslim and one of them being a low-level Shiv-Sena activist, the Left-Islamist media immediately switched to blaming the RSS for planning the hartal. Even the Chief-Minister plus Home-Minister Pinarayi Vijayan described it as Whatsapp hartal by RSS, in the state assembly.
A woman of 25 from Pathanamthitta escaped an attempt to sell her to ISIS in Syria by a man named Mohammed Riyas Rashidi who had converted her to Islam through blackmail.
Kerala Police investigation team on this case says they have uncovered a dedicated network operating in the North Kerala and South Karnataka who engage in such activities. 10 people including a woman have been identified and two people who allegedly facilitated their marriage has been arrested. The main accused was in Saudi Arabia and was later arrested by NIA at Chennai.
Accused Mohammed Riyas Rashidi
The Pathanamthitta native woman grew up in Gujarat. She met Riyas while studying in Bangalore.
She was allegedly raped and was blackmailed using video of her rape to convert her to Islam and to make her a follower of Zakir Naik. The woman was confined in a place in North Paravur for 6 months after which she was taken to Saudi Arabia where she was made to watch Zakir Naik videos and such. She got some clue that she was going to be sold to ISIS in Syria and escaped from his clutches and flew back to India with the help of Malayalees whom she met at the airport.
A few Muslim police staff from Adoor KAP 3rd Battalion demanded they be posted for airport duty. This raised suspicions and an investigation ordered by the battalion IG revealed they were part of an Islamist Whatsapp group called"Pacha Velicham" (green light) with pro PFI views. There was an effort by higher ups in the police force to hush up this matter. January 29, 2018.
