Girl’s ‘disappearance’ from Mangalore raises terror fears

The incident assumes significance following
reports that Pakistan’s ISI has been giving training to women for jihad.
Intelligence sleuths say four people, including two from Kerala, have been
involved in the recruitment of women cadre for jihad, especially after
26/11.

With Mangalore’s links with terror modules coming out in the
open, intelligence agencies suspect there may be a racket operating in the
region to woo women. SIMI is believed to have established a women’s wing in
Kerala.

The nursing student, in her early 20s, went missing from the
college about 45 days ago. Later, she informed her parents in Kerala she was
going to study Islam in a Kozhikode seminary, family sources said. The parents,
with the help of police, contacted the seminary in Kozhikode. They met their
daughter in the seminary and asked her to return home, but she said she would
come home on January 14 after finishing studies. But when the parents again went
there on January 12 to bring her back, they were told that she had left the
place about a week back.

The same seminary was in the news as it was
here that Varghese Joseph alias Mohd Yasin one of the four terrorists from
Kerala killed in an encounter with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir in
October 2008 was converted from Christianity into Islam. At least 40 people 32
Hindus and eight Christians were converted here in December 2008 alone,
intelligence sources said.