The
arrest of Afshan Jabeen in Hyderabad last week came as a shocker. Though
her persona hasn't been unraveled completely just yet, it has
definitely provided clues to many mysteries.
Jabeen is not British national Nicole Joseph. She does not belong to any western country either. She is a Hyderabadi Gulf NRI who completed her preliminary education from the India International School in Dubai. Later the 1977-born Jabeen studied in Hyderabad and obtained her first degree in commerce. She joined a travel agency thereafter where Devender Kumar also worked.
He and Jabeen fell in love and Devender decided to become a Muslim to marry her. The two made a happy couple until she gave birth to two premature babies. The couple lived in the UAE.
With no job, she spent long hours surfing the Internet. Slowly, she got interested in Islamic themes, which led her to sites that preached radical Islam. She started believing that it was in jihad that Muslims could find salvation. To take others along she created websites such as Moderate versus Extremist Islam; Islam versus Christianity and Daula (Islamic State) News. From the debates taking place on these sites, she began zeroing in on people with whom she could be more open and friendly. Soon she found a few young men who volunteered to become co-admin of such sites. Salman Mohiuddin of Hyderabad was one of them. She told him her name was Nicole Joseph -- a British national who had converted to Islam recently and taken Ayesha as her new name.
This was also the time in 2014 when ISIS had literally exploded onto the world scene and declared itself a caliphate. It was asking anybody and everybody to join ranks with ISIS fighters. The emergence of ISIS created an unprecedented turmoil not only in West Asia but also in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. Tech-savvy members of the IS began recruiting youth from around the world giving them hope that the caliphate would become a reality soon and have the whole world bend before it. Quick victories in Iraq and Syria made the tall claims of the IS look genuine and practical. The failure of the neighbouring countries, as well as the US and European forces, to check the IS' advances and the brutal ways it was adopting in occupied territories, influenced the youth like never before. Though Islamic scholars from different corners of the world condemned the IS and its concept of the caliphate it did not deter the youth because they had been seeing the West Asia sink deep into wars, despots ruling and corruption becoming rampant by the day.
Salman Mohiuddin who had completed his education in Hyderabad and secured a degree in engineering from a college in Vikarabad, was in the US finishing his MS in electronics from Houston. His virtual connection with Nicole, who he lovingly called Nicky, was turning into a relationship where the two had promised to work for the ultimate success of IS. When Nicky said they should get married, his joy was boundless. Since his US visa had expired and he had returned to Hyderabad - where he was living in Bazaarghat -- he decided to fly to Dubai, get married there and move on to Syria. It never crossed his mind that Nicky aka Ayesha was taking him for a ride. When he went to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport to board a flight to Dubai, he was picked up by the police. The dream of love and jihad came crashing. Eight months later he came face to face with reality, when the police put him before Afshan Jabeen.
The Telangana police, in the last 10 to 12 months, have arrested four young men, two from Hyderabad and two from Yawatmal, Maharashtra. They have also counselled 16 others with the help of their elders, let them off but kept them under watch. Among those who have been counselled is a girl named Hiba who under the influence of a Yemeni nurse left Hyderabad to join the IS. But she was sent back by the Turkish government from the Syrian border.
The Afshan Jabeen case hasn't been completely solved. The police are still questioning her. Sources say she appears to be completely radicalised over the years and has worked extensively to lure several people into subscribing to the IS' ideology of blood and gore.
There could be many reasons why Islamic scholars as well as Hyderabad's Muslim society have failed to check the blitzkrieg of the IS. The parental control has retreated in the context of aggressiveness of the youth. Parents now have no knowledge of just what kind of people their children are interacting with or what they are watching on their computers. Scholars do not have a strong presence on social media to present the true picture of Islam and its values of peace and harmony. This has given radicals too much space, both at homes and on the social media. They are able to poach on young minds at will. This has to stop before it turns into a social and political catastrophe.
Jabeen is not British national Nicole Joseph. She does not belong to any western country either. She is a Hyderabadi Gulf NRI who completed her preliminary education from the India International School in Dubai. Later the 1977-born Jabeen studied in Hyderabad and obtained her first degree in commerce. She joined a travel agency thereafter where Devender Kumar also worked.
He and Jabeen fell in love and Devender decided to become a Muslim to marry her. The two made a happy couple until she gave birth to two premature babies. The couple lived in the UAE.
With no job, she spent long hours surfing the Internet. Slowly, she got interested in Islamic themes, which led her to sites that preached radical Islam. She started believing that it was in jihad that Muslims could find salvation. To take others along she created websites such as Moderate versus Extremist Islam; Islam versus Christianity and Daula (Islamic State) News. From the debates taking place on these sites, she began zeroing in on people with whom she could be more open and friendly. Soon she found a few young men who volunteered to become co-admin of such sites. Salman Mohiuddin of Hyderabad was one of them. She told him her name was Nicole Joseph -- a British national who had converted to Islam recently and taken Ayesha as her new name.
This was also the time in 2014 when ISIS had literally exploded onto the world scene and declared itself a caliphate. It was asking anybody and everybody to join ranks with ISIS fighters. The emergence of ISIS created an unprecedented turmoil not only in West Asia but also in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. Tech-savvy members of the IS began recruiting youth from around the world giving them hope that the caliphate would become a reality soon and have the whole world bend before it. Quick victories in Iraq and Syria made the tall claims of the IS look genuine and practical. The failure of the neighbouring countries, as well as the US and European forces, to check the IS' advances and the brutal ways it was adopting in occupied territories, influenced the youth like never before. Though Islamic scholars from different corners of the world condemned the IS and its concept of the caliphate it did not deter the youth because they had been seeing the West Asia sink deep into wars, despots ruling and corruption becoming rampant by the day.
Salman Mohiuddin who had completed his education in Hyderabad and secured a degree in engineering from a college in Vikarabad, was in the US finishing his MS in electronics from Houston. His virtual connection with Nicole, who he lovingly called Nicky, was turning into a relationship where the two had promised to work for the ultimate success of IS. When Nicky said they should get married, his joy was boundless. Since his US visa had expired and he had returned to Hyderabad - where he was living in Bazaarghat -- he decided to fly to Dubai, get married there and move on to Syria. It never crossed his mind that Nicky aka Ayesha was taking him for a ride. When he went to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport to board a flight to Dubai, he was picked up by the police. The dream of love and jihad came crashing. Eight months later he came face to face with reality, when the police put him before Afshan Jabeen.
The Telangana police, in the last 10 to 12 months, have arrested four young men, two from Hyderabad and two from Yawatmal, Maharashtra. They have also counselled 16 others with the help of their elders, let them off but kept them under watch. Among those who have been counselled is a girl named Hiba who under the influence of a Yemeni nurse left Hyderabad to join the IS. But she was sent back by the Turkish government from the Syrian border.
The Afshan Jabeen case hasn't been completely solved. The police are still questioning her. Sources say she appears to be completely radicalised over the years and has worked extensively to lure several people into subscribing to the IS' ideology of blood and gore.
There could be many reasons why Islamic scholars as well as Hyderabad's Muslim society have failed to check the blitzkrieg of the IS. The parental control has retreated in the context of aggressiveness of the youth. Parents now have no knowledge of just what kind of people their children are interacting with or what they are watching on their computers. Scholars do not have a strong presence on social media to present the true picture of Islam and its values of peace and harmony. This has given radicals too much space, both at homes and on the social media. They are able to poach on young minds at will. This has to stop before it turns into a social and political catastrophe.
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