KOZHIKODE: A Wayanad native, who had undergone religious training for some time before turning to worldly activities and moving to Scandinavia in search of better opportunities, has been found allegedly involved in the sensational sabotage in Lebanon on Tuesday in which hundreds of pagers were ripped off.
pager blastwho targeted the terrorist group HezbollahThe IS fighters killed 12 people, including civilians and some children, and injured dozens more. Norta Global Ltd., based in Sofia, Bulgaria, is reportedly owned by Rinson Jose (37) Wayanad, Norwegian citizen International security agencies are investigating following reports of sale of hundreds of pagers.
The central intelligence agencies and the Kerala police special branch on Friday collected information about Rinsan from his native place Ondiyangadi near Mananthavady in Wayanad. Wayanad district police chief Taposh Basumathry said the police had carried out a general background check of Rinsan.
Family in Ondiangdi says Rinsan will do no wrong
Now that the identity and details of the family have been revealed in the media, the police have taken steps to ensure their safety. We are patrolling the area,” said Wayanad district police chief Taposh Basumathry.
Family sources said Mutheth Jose and Gracy’s son Rinson, who worked as a tailor, had gone abroad with his twin brother, who is now working in the UK. Rinson’s sister is a nurse in Ireland. He was living in Norway with his wife and last came home in November 2023 and returned in January 2024. “Rinson last spoke to his family three days ago and since then they have not been able to contact him on phone. We also tried calling Rinson’s wife on Friday, but no one received the call. The reports about him are unreliable; he could also be duped,” Rinson’s uncle Thankachan told TOI. Does Norta Global have any connection with the pager purchase?
Hungarian media reported that Sofia-based Norta Global had facilitated the sale of Pager. The firm’s website described it as a leading technology company focused on consulting, technology and payment integration, recruitment and outsourcing, and has now been removed.
However, Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security (SANS) said on Friday that Norta Global and its owner “did not carry out any transactions involving the sale or purchase of goods” or that “fall under laws on the financing of terrorism”. Reuters reported on Thursday that Norta’s Bulgarian headquarters were registered to an apartment building near Sofia that was also home to about 200 other companies, but there was no sign of Norta.
Reuters said Rinson declined to comment on the pager when reached by phone and hung up when asked about the Bulgarian business. Amund Juve, CEO of DN Media, where Jose currently works, told Reuters he was aware of the reports and had alerted police and security services. He said Jose was traveling to the United States. Oslo police said it had begun a “preliminary investigation into the information that has come to light.” Norway’s domestic intelligence agency, PST, said it was aware of the situation and declined to comment further, Reuters reported.
According to Rinson’s LinkedIn page, he has been working at Oslo-based DN Media Group in Norway for about five years and has been leading digitization, automation and growth across multiple brands/publications. In addition to mentioning him as an entrepreneur who has run an IT services, consulting, procurement and recruitment company called Nortalink since 2016, it identifies him as the co-founder of StarCruter, an IT recruitment and business development firm, and the IT recruitment firm. Rinson studied a master’s in international social welfare and health policy at Oslo Metropolitan University from 2012 to 2015. The profile also claims that he was the secretary general of Norway’s International Student Union (ISU) for a year from September 2012.
The quiet boy who could do no wrong
Back home in Ondiyangadi, residents of the area said they knew Rinson as an honest man, while his shocked family members said they were sure he would do nothing wrong. Rinson’s uncle Thankachan said Rinson studied in Ondiyangadi school, after which he went to a seminary for a year and later continued his studies in Wayanad and Bengaluru. He worked in a call centre in Bengaluru in 2010 before going to Norway for higher studies and did his MBA from Pondicherry. He said he did not know that Rinson owned a company there. “He was an employee in an organisation… the family is not so rich. His father and mother worked as tailors in Mananthavady, and even now they do tailoring work at home,” he said.
Thankachan also said that Rinsan had to struggle financially during his student life. “It was a local priest who helped him go to college. After moving to Norway, he took up part-time jobs like newspaper delivery and at a care home. You can ask anyone in our church diocese and no one will have anything bad to say about him.”
