Khaja Moideen Emir of Tamil Nadu IS: NIA officials

C Khaja Moideen alias Abdullah Muthaleef, 47, was arrested by the NIA in the third week of September for his suspected links with IS, four days before one of his recruits Shakul Hameed alias Salavadin, an MBA dropout, was arrested from Otteri in Chennai. Khaja Moideen, a native of Cuddalore, was lodged in Salem prison after he was arrested in July 2014 for the murder of KP Suresh Kumar, a Hindu Munnani leader in Ambattur in June 2014. 

Sources said that he was a former SIMI activist, who turned into a hard-core IS operative, and received funds locally to look for youth and recruit them for IS. He was lodged in Puzhal prison, but later transferred to Salem jail after he was involved in an incident of attacking the jail staff and taking one of the jailors as hostage along with his associates in 2015.

“It was Khaja Moideen, who lured Shakul Hameed to IS and even arranged his travel to abroad once. Khaja is also the head of Muslim Orunginaippu Peravai,” a senior official disclosed. 

During the interrogation by a DSP team from NIA, Khaja Moideen confessed to heading the IS in Tamil Nadu but refused to divulge other details. “Shakul confessed that he was influenced by Khaja Moideen to join the IS,” an official disclosed. It may be recalled that the NIA had registered a case against nine people, including Khaja Moideen and Shakul in January this year, based on information from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The FIR against the nine suspects stated that the group, hailing from Tamil Nadu and Telangana, had been indulging in activities of the IS, besides hatching a criminal conspiracy in Chennai and other parts of the country, by forming the terror group, which raised and received funds, organised camps, recruited and trained people and facilitated their travel to Syria to join the IS. 

In the FIR, the NIA had also named U Haja Fakkruddin, a native of Cuddalore, the first man from TN who is believed to have joined the IS after leaving his lucrative job in Singapore. He is still believed to be in Syria. Others named in the FIR are M Ansar Meeran of Chennai, M Masood Azrudin of Tirunelveli, M Sadiq Basha of Nagapattinam, J Mohammed Syed Abu Thahir of Karur, A Mohammed Tabriz of Chennai, and M Noman Jameel of Telangana.