ISIS fighter reveals first confirmed presence of Indian woman in Mosul

New Delhi: Interrogation of an ISIS supporter who fought for the terrorist organisation in Mosul has revealed the first ever confirmed presence of an Indian woman in the conflict zone.

According to a report, the new information came to light when the National Investigation Agency (NIA) interrogated Tamil Nadu resident Subahani Haja Moideen. The 31-year-old was arrested earlier this year while attempting to arrange for explosives from Sivakasi.

Moideen told the interrogators that he met an Indian couple from Maharashtra during his five-month stint in Iraq’s Mosul, adding that he chanced upon them in a public space. He said he hardly saw any Indians in the war-ridden city, may be two to three.

Moideen said according to his inputs, India was not in the immediate list of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS.

“He was a low ranking cadre but says that whatever information he gathered did not suggest that the ISIS leaders had any plans for India. They were more interested in targeting western countries,” the report quoted an NIA official as saying.

NIA sources revealed that they did not know of any such Mahrashtra-based couple who had travelled to Iraq to join the extremist organisation and that the authorities were going through all records to determine their identity. The authorities were also trying to determine if the couple had travelled form India directly, or made transit to Iraq through another country.

Moideen, during his interrogation revealed that he had travelled to Iraq in April 2015 but returned in September. He claimed that he came back to India because he was troubled by the amount of violence that he witnessed in Mosul. Two of his friends were charred to death in front of him after they were struck by shelling, he added.

Moideen was not under the NIA scanner before or after he came back from Mosul. He was nabbed after the authorities chanced on him during an investigation into another case, where six men owing allegiance to ISIS had plotted to kill high court judges and senior RSS leaders.

Earlier this year, 21 people from Kerala travelled to Afghanistan to join ISIS. The group included three women and six children but the whereabouts of these people are unknown.