From manhunt for Islamic State, cops suspect sour relationship

Hyderabad: What started off as a hunt for a man from Telangana, suspected of having links with Islamic State (IS), followed by allegations that he harassed a woman from Kerala to work at the IS camps and then deceived her, ended up simply being a case of a relationship gone sour.

A 26-year-old woman complained to the Director-General of Police of Kerala Loknath Behera, that she was forced to convert to another religion and serve in the IS camps abroad as a nurse by a man from Telangana. This led the police of the two states to go on a wild goose chase.

The woman from Ranny in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala also alleged she was raped by the man, her former boyfriend, two years ago. It is unclear what made her approach the police now. She said in her complaint that when she was working as a nurse at a private hospital in LB Nagar in Rachakonda police commissionerate in Hyderabad in 2017, she became friends with a man from Miryalguda in Nalgonda district, who was also her colleague. They fell in love and developed intimacy.

Some days later, the man is alleged to have had sexual relations with her after promising to marry her, which she said was rape. She alleged that he forced her to change her religion and join Islamic State to serve them as a nurse in their camps.

When she refused to do what he wanted she alleged that he forcibly took away her gold ornaments and then abandoned her. She returned to Kerala and two years later, she met the Kerala DGP and gave in the complaint.

Since IS was mentioned in the complaint, the police swung into action and swiftly made inquiries. The Kerala police got in touch with their Telangana counterparts and passed on the information. In no time, a hunt began for the individual.

The Rachakonda police traced the man from Miryalaguda and he was identified as Mahesh. “A case of rape was registered in Kerala following a complaint from the woman and it was transferred to Telangana for further investigation. The man has been identified as Mahesh and the investigation so far suggests that he has no links to IS. However, we are probing the matter further to re-confirm the same. The case is under investigation and we will be able to reveal more in the next few days,” a police official said. When asked about the allegations of links of the suspect with IS, the official said that prima facie the case appears to be of a relationship that went sour.