How Bahrain-based flesh trade gang trapped an innocent Keralite NRI with terror tag

Abdul Kader Rahim was busy with his work at a garage at Chalakkudi, a small town in the south Indian state of Kerala, when he heard that his name was being splashed on television screens as a terror suspect. He was panicked after one of his friends informed him about the same news linking him to a terror plot.

Rahim was interrogated continuously for two days by several Indian agencies on a suspicion that he had helped out two Lakshar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists, who had landed in Coimbatore via Sri Lanka, according to a Manorama report.

Released on Monday evening, Rahim was told that all cases against him were dropped.

After working for several years in Bahrain, he returned to Kerala last year hoping to start from scratch. But as his plans failed to take off, Rahim was forced to seek employment abroad once again.

As the police wanted him for interrogation after he was framed in the case, he came back from Bahrain to directly surrender before a court in Kerala on August 22. Had he been arrested anywhere else, his ordeal could have been worse, he said.

Rahim also said that he was implicated in the case with a photo, which was taken at the Bahrain airport two decades ago. Once the police were convinced that the photo that was produced by their informants as proof was actually downloaded from a Bahrain government website, they began to lend a patient ear to Rahim. The photo in question could not have been accessed without submitting personal data such as Aadhaar number. Rahim said that the people who tried to frame him had an axe to grind.

Revenge of sex racket

The flashback involves a sex racket, which was busted in Bahrain some years ago. A woman who was rescued from the racket was also taken into custody along with Rahim. The sex racket that was centred in a hotel in Bahrain run by a few Keralites has busted, thanks to the intervention of Rahim. Rahim's enemies probably wanted to make sure that he never returned to Bahrain, the newspaper said.

The hotel was put under lock and key after the flesh trade was revealed. As many as 18 associated outlets were frozen. Rahim said he had told about the case in detail to the police in Kerala, who have examined all documents related to the case in Bahrain. The police have also got in touch with the Indian embassy in Bahrain, which had helped Rahim unravel the racket.

The police had a tough time matching the old photo with Rahim when he surrendered before the court due to his change over the years. He showed the police on his mobile how the picture might have been compromised from the official site.

The agencies, which interrogated him, mainly wanted to find out if he had made a call to Coimbatore as some of the reports claimed. Rahim knew no one in Coimbatore.

Although Rahim was released a couple of days ago, he is yet to come out of the shock of his lifetime.