The police team probing the attempted recruitment to the Islamic State has begun probing the role of a city-based school where Merin Jacob, one of the missing youths, had worked as a teacher.
Official sources said Merin, aka Mariyam, had returned to her home after converting to Islam while working in Mumbai and had joined the school on a direction by her husband Bestin Vincent alias Yahia.
The sleuths also collected evidence from the branch of the same school near North Paravur where also she had worked.
Based on the information, the sleuths have collected details about the financial transactions of the school and confirmed that the school used to receive money from various unidentified sources.
According to the police, a fund of Rs.2 lakh was transferred to the school’s bank account from Srinagar in August last year.
Further, the account received Rs.1 lakh more on the same day from Hyderabad.
“Besides the school, we are tracking details about the function of a handful of other institutions suspected to have links with Merin and Bestin,’’ said a top police officer.
Missing families
Meanwhile, the sleuths interrogating Arshi Qureshi and Rizwan Khan, the two Mumbai natives arrested in connection with the case, said that they could get more leads on the whereabouts of the reported missing Keralite families.
“The case appears to be more serious than what has been reported so far,’’ they said, while also suggesting the possibilities of the missing families reaching the Afghan-Iran border.
