Around 25 Sikh worshippers were massacred in a Gurudwara in Kabul by suicide bombers. It has now emerged that one of them was an Indian national.
The attack took place on Wednesday and received lot of flak from around the world with people saying that at a time when the entire world was tackling a pandemic; this was something that was beyond everyone's understanding.
Who was IS suicide bomber?
The Kerala-born jihadist Abdul Khayum, also known as Abu Khalid, was once a one-time resident of Chekkikulam in Kerala's Kannur district and he was sought by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) since 2017 for his alleged role in multiple terrorist plots, IndiaToday reported.
According to a report, he carried out the attack to avenge violence against Muslims in India. A post circulated online said, "Abu Khalid, may Allah accept him, has avenged the atrocities on Muslims in India."
Al Naba, a propaganda magazine of the IS, had published his photograph, holding a Type 56 assault rifle and pointing his finger up in a one-finger Tawhid salute, on March 26.
The NIA had earlier stated that in what would have been the first attack of its kind in India, an encrypted chat was used by Khayum to organise a suicide bombing plot by Palakkad-based jihadist Riyas Aboobacker.
The attack was supposedly designed to emulate the Sri Lanka suicide bombings of 2019, led by jihadist ideologue and preacher Zahran Hashim.
Following an interrogation, Riyas's arrest happened as he accepted that he followed Hashim's speeches and videos for more than a year.
If top police intelligence sources in Kerala are to be believed then the photograph that appeared in Al Naba was of 21-year-old Muhammad Muhsin, who was believed to have died in a drone strike in Afghanistan last year.
On June 18 in 2019, Muhsin, an engineering student from Thrikkaripur in Kasargod district, was killed.
In a rather gruesome incident, grenades were lobbed at around 200 worshippers as three IS terrorists opened fire in the Gurudwara at 7:45 am on March 25.
After a six-hour gun battle between the Afghan forces and the terrorists, all the three attackers were killed and 80 hostages were freed.
If Abu Khalid Al-Hindi is indeed Muhsin then it would make him the second Indian suicide attacker in the IS.
