Kerala HC seeks Centre's reply on plea of mother of IS jailed 'supporter'

Presently her daughter and her kid is in a jail in Kabul, for being a Islamic State supporter.

After hearing the petition, the court asked the Centre to respond to it and posted the case for hearing after two weeks.

In her petition, Bindhu points out that the court should direct the Centre to ensure that Nimisha is brought back to the country as the Constitution grants certain rights to individuals and it's for the Centre to ensure it happens.

Incidentally, it was last month this issue re-surfaced after Bindhu, who lives in the state capital, was reacting to a news that appeared in a leading national English daily that the Indian government is unlikely to bring back four ladies including Nimisha to the country.

"How can my country say like that. They can bring the women and let them conduct the trial as per the law of our country. I am hopeful and I have trust in my country. All the four women are widows and they have children. What wrong have the kids done? I want my granddaughter who is four years old now," said a concerned Bindhu, then.

The four women presently lodged in a jail in Kabul include Soniya, Merin, Nimisha and Raheela, all Keralites.

Incidentally, the news of Keralites joining IS surfaced after the Kerala government contacted various central agencies -- IB, NIA, RAW in 2016 about the veracity of reports about 19 missing people from the state and according to some of the relatives they are believed to have joined the IS.

These 19 included 10 men, six women and three children and of these, most of them hail from Kasargode and a few from Palakkad districts and includes Christian and Hindu converts.

While in the past three years, a few of those who had joined IS were reportedly killed, according to their relatives, who got information about it and the husbands of these Kerala ladies were among those who have been killed.

It was in 2016 that Bindhu, who is settled near Manacadu in the state capital approached Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seeking his help to locate her daughter who had gone missing.

But later it was known that Nimisha has got married to her friend Eeza, a Christian who had converted to Islam.

Further to this the news came that she had left for Afghanistan and the last contact the mother and the daughter had was in 2019 November.

--IANS sg/skp/

( 455 Words)

2021-07-26-15:08:58 (IANS)