NEW DELHI, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- An Indian youth belonging to southern state of Kerala and who had fled a year ago to Afghanistan allegedly to join the Islamic State (or Daish) has been deported back to India by Kabul. He was arrested by the country's national investigating agency (NIA) and is being interrogated.
Identified as Nashidul Hamzafar, aged 26, the young man is alleged to have travelled to Afghanistan in October 2017, but was detained by Afghan security agencies.
He reportedly hails from Wayanad district of Kerala.
Confirming his deportation and subsequent arrest, an official statement issued by the NIA said: "Nashidul was detained by Afghan security agencies last year for illegally entering the country to join his associates in proscribed terrorist organisation IS/Daish."
In a shocking case that had come to light in 2016 as many as 14 youths from Kerala's Kasargod district had left India, or their work places in the Middle East, between mid-May and early-July, 2016 before travelling to Afghanistan, where they joined the Islamic State.
Subsequent to his arrest, Hamzafar was produced before a special court in Delhi, and will now be taken to Kochi (in Kerala) for further interrogation and investigation, said NIA sources.