Two Bradford husbands whose wives and kids absconded to the “Islamic State” last week have accused the police of actively encouraging and promoting the radicalisation of the three sisters.
Lawyers for Mohammed Shoaib, 39, and Akhtar Iqbal, 48, have written to the Home and Foreign Secretaries, and chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, Keith Vaz.
They say the police played a part in sending the sisters towards IS by encouraging contact with their radicalised brother in Syria.
The letter, seen by The Mail on Sunday, said: “We are alarmed by the fact that the police have been actively promoting and encouraging contact with the brother-in-law of our clients whom, it is believed, is fighting in Syria.
“It would appear that there has been a reckless disregard as to the consequences of any such contact on the families. Plainly the North East Counter-Terrorism Unit (Nectu) has been complicit in the grooming and radicalising of the women.”
They also blamed “”oppressive police surveillance” for the fact that the sisters and their nine children aged three to 15, had left the UK.
The letter continues: “The actions and misjudgment of the Nectu has placed the lives of 12 British citizens at risk, nine of whom are innocent children.”
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Meanwhile, Downing St has rejected the accusations.
A No 10 spokesman told The Mail on Sunday: “As the Prime Minister said in his speech on Friday, it is wrong and dangerous to play the blame-game, and to argue that radicalisation is the fault of someone else. Pointing the finger at the authorities or agencies ignores the real causes of radicalisation and how we can work together to tackle it.”
And Mr Vaz told the newspapaer “That three women could disappear from the UK to take nine children into the heart of a war zone is incomprehensible. The claims of their relatives in the UK that their links with IS were ‘encouraged’ by the authorities is concerning.”
It emerged last week that the women were stopped from leaving the country for Saudi Arabia in March by police, who dragged them off a plane to question them under the Terrorism Act 2000. But they were allowed to rebook the flight and go in May, as they were going on umrah.
