By M D Nalapat
Largely
unreported in the media, Indian nationals who joined ISIS continue to
be killed in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and even the Philippines.
In
the United States, those without medical insurance have to wait until
an illness turns critical for them to be admitted to a hospital, despite
healthcare in such cases being several times more expensive than when
an ailment is battled at an early stage. Similarly in India, very often a
security threat develops in a climate of official denial, often for
decades, before erupting. Take Kashmir, where the Indira Gandhi-Sheikh
Abdullah accord facilitated the entry of Wahhabi groups into the Valley
beginning in the 1970s. Several hundred religious schools mentored by
religious radicals were set up, even as hundreds were allowed to return
from the Pakistan-controlled side to those parts still left in India.
These were largely left alone by security agencies as being merely
“pious youth”, yet it was these individuals who participated in the
genocide of Pandits in Kashmir. For close to two decades ending in 1989,
the steady indoctrination of Kashmiri youth by Wahhabi groups, intent
on duplicating the Afghanistan strategy in India, was underplayed by
security agencies. In Punjab as well, J.S. Bhindranwale was sponsored by
no less than a Union Home Minister, because he opposed the political
and personal rivals of Zail Singh within both the Congress as well as
the Akali Dal. Those active in the ISI-sponsored Khalistan movement in
Canada, the US and the UK were allowed free entry into the Punjab to
spread their toxic message. Foreign financiers and publicists for
Khalistan should have their visas cancelled. Those recruited by ISIS
across India should not be indulged as “pious” or “misguided” youth, but
as vectors of terror needing to be sanitised before causing mass
casualties.
ISIS represents a more potent threat to the stability of
India because of the boundary-less appeal of the core doctrine of the
movement, which is that its leadership alone has the knowledge and the
will to prevail over its foes and to provide a governance system that it
claims would approximate that of the golden age of Islam. The takeover
this year of Marawi in the Philippines by ISIS may inspire clusters
elsewhere to attempt similar land grabs in locations where they confront
inadequate or incompetent security forces. Takeovers of towns even for a
few weeks would create a destabilising dynamic and spread of the
movement within several countries where unemployment and misgovernance
are rife. Add to that the potential for small groups of recruits
anywhere in the world to commit localised acts of mass terror. These
include the 80-plus attacks—with close to 700 casualties—carried out in
Europe and North America since 2015. The region around India has already
been systematically infiltrated by ISIS through groups such as the
Jundul Khalifa Bilal al Hind and the Wilayat Khorasan. Security agencies
need to keep pace with such an expansion. While two dozen modules in
India have been discovered and destroyed, it could be that ISIS is still
in the process of building up its network in India, before it begins
launching attacks on the scale seen in Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Bangladesh. Security agencies need to work out counteroffensives that
multiply the use of cyber and psywar before ISIS graduates from the
stage of building up its capabilities to joining in the ISI’s existing
non-conventional war against India.
Conservative (official) estimates are that around 400 Indian nationals have been confirmed as having been recruited into different cells of ISIS, but the number is almost certainly much more.
ISIS, the latest avatar of global Wahhabi terror, is
distinguished by the sophistication of its social media usage and reach.
Given the determined use of encrypted methods of communication by
extremists, it is certain that a large proportion of new recruits to
ISIS in India are as yet unknown to the security agencies. Conservative
(official) estimates are that around 400 Indian nationals have been
confirmed as having been recruited into different cells of ISIS, but the
number is almost certainly much more. Worse, more than 4,700 radicals
from Malaysia, Indonesia, Maldives, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan
have been confirmed as having joined ISIS battle groups in Syria, Iraq
and Libya. For them, India is a tempting alternative target, now that
the organisation is being pushed back from the territory it has
controlled since 2014.
Among the reasons against taking in Rohingyas is the fact
that the terror hubs in Bangladesh are as enthusiastic as their
counterparts in Afghanistan and Pakistan in planning for “bringing back
through jihad the glory of the past” to India. Largely unreported in the
media, Indian nationals who joined ISIS continue to be killed in Syria,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and even the Philippines. A recent casualty
was a youth from Kasargod in Kerala, Mohammad Marwan. Over the past two
years, estimates by global security agencies compute the number of
Indian citizens killed during confrontations with ISIS as being in
excess of thirty.
The earlier history of downplaying threats in Punjab and
Kashmir until it was too late to save hundreds of lives should not be
repeated in the case of ISIS. The virus needs to be eliminated while
still in its initial stages of progression, as otherwise it could mutate
into forms that may take decades to overcome.
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