The investigators who grilled the arrested IS sympathizer Yasmin Mohd Zahid, said that, twenty two Keralites accused of leaving India to join the Islamic State are learnt to have reached "the caliphate" in Afghanistan in the first week of July.

The authorities arrested 29-year-old Yasmin at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport while trying to exit India for Afghanistan on August 1.

According to the investigators, she informed that thirteen of the missing Keralites were men, six women and three children, and "they had left their houses in Kasaragod and Palakkad districts of Kerala between mid-May and the first week of July."

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the case of 22 missing Keralites, said that, all of the missing Keralites had "exited India from Bengaluru, Hyderabad or Mumbai airports for Kuwait, Dubai, Muscat or Abu Dhabi from where they are learnt to have travelled to Afghanistan through Iran.

Yasmin further said during custodial interrogation, that on May 3 this year she had got married to Abdul Rashid, 30, in a nikah ceremony solemnized over phone. Rashid is one of the accused who left India along with other Keralites.

The NIA official said citing Yasmin's statement, that, "Rashid had told Yasmin in the first week of July that he and other missing persons from Kerala had reached the Caliphate in Afghanistan."

Rashid worked for Peace International School, run by Islamic preacher Zakir Naik's NGO, Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).

"Yasmin had purchased flight tickets, paid for the Afghanistan visa and also purchased $620 using the money."

The NIA also claimed, missing people from Kerala, who are suspected to have joined the Islamic State in Afghanistan, that some of the members were inspired by a U.K. based couple.

Also Read: Zakir Naik's 'aide' arrested for recruiting youths for IS!

Nandini