By A Mirsab, Twocircles.net
Islamic State or ISIS, as it is commonly known, declared in June 2014 the establishment of ‘global caliphate’ for Muslims. Muslims across the world rejected this ‘Caliphate’ and the organisation was denounced in the strongest possible manner and Indian Muslims too joined the rest of the world in rejecting the IS calling it anti-Islamic. However, this has not stopped a surge in Indian Muslims witnessing harassment at the hands of security agencies under the pretense of alliance with ISIS.
In last two years, the National Security Agency (NIA) and the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) have arrested scores of youth across the country for being sympathizers and for being in touch with terrorists based in Iraq. Some have been arrested for having pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the most wanted terrorist in the world and the leader of ISIS while others have been arrested for being members of Al-Qaida in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) or Ansarul Tauhid Fee Biladil Hind.
In fact, the number of such cases has only risen with each passing day, with security agencies claiming to have unearthed massive terror conspiracies that could have resulted in the deaths and loss of property.
However, the truth remains that India has never witnessed terror attack from ISIS or AQIS but under the guise of it many youths have been sent to prison.
Change in trend
The trend of Indian Muslims’ persecution has changed since the emergence of ISIS. Earlier youths would be picked up for their alleged involvement in orchestrating bomb blast or for being member of any banned organization in India such as Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).
It has been observed that security agency keeps changing this trend in every few years. After the ban on SIMI in 2001, a trend emerged under which senior functionaries of this organization were arbitrarily arrested from across the country and were charged under sections of rioting, unlawful assembly, sedition and waging war against the nation. However, none of this organization member were convicted under the sections of sedition or waging war against nation. This was the reason that the tribunal that checks activities of each banned organization every two years, lifted ban from SIMI in April 2008 but ministry used its veto and banned it the next day.
This trend continued till it arrested Safdar Nagori, a senior most functionary of SIMI in May 2008 and charged him under many cases across the country including Ahmedabad bomb blasts that actually took place couple of months after his arrest.
A new trend took birth after his arrest and the security agency blamed Indian Mujahideen organization for bomb blasts in the country. Many youths were picked up for being members of this organization. This trend continued till November 2013 when the last major bomb blast took place in Patna during Narendra Modi’s election rally.
This was the last bomb blasts that the security agencies claim to have caused by Indian Mujahideen or LeT resulting into the death of six people.
Many youths were picked up by NIA for causing this blast and since then India has not witnessed any significant bomb blast. After the arrest of Yasin Bhatkal, NIA claimed that senior leadership of the banned organization had been wiped out from India. Time and again, families of the accused rejected involvement of these youths in the anti-national activities and suspected foul play of security agencies behind their arrests, the only silver lining was that if the bomb blast case has been ‘solved’, no more youths would now be arrested.
To sum up, the earlier trend was that the security agencies would arrest youth in the pursuit of being members of banned organizations SIMI or LeT then they would look for youths for alleged involvement in bomb blast cases and therefore Indian Muslims would feel unsecured only until a bomb blast, or a terrorist attack, occurred in the country.
But now, the trend has changed for the worse, if one takes a look at how things are unfolding in the present scenario. The aforementioned agencies have now departed from the earlier ‘traditional’ methods of investigation and have now started picking up youth for allegedly being “in touch with ISIS or AQIS.”
How does one stay ‘in touch’ with these organisations? Read on.
Many youths including Maulana Abdul Sami Qasmi and Maulana Anzar Shah Qasmi have been arrested in last two years by NIA from Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. NIA alleged them to be the members of ISIS or AQIS and as evidence it produced electronic communication from chatrooms that they allegedly had with their handlers through Facebook or twitter.
Arrest without prior admonition
Interestingly, most of the youth and the maulana arrested by agencies were already on their surveillance but they were never admonished. In the case of younger people, their parents were never informed about their child’s suspicious activities. Instead, it allowed those youth to continue their activities and arrested them when they gathered electronic evidences to prosecute them.
As a substitute if agencies would have restricted youth at the early stage of their alleged radicalization with the help of their parents then they would not have gone that far and their arrest would have been avoided.
However, there is hardly any case reported in India where agencies utilised help of parents in containing youths or for stopping their radicalization. This is the reason that there are number of such cases where agency arrested youths and claimed to have unearthed conspiracies.
Considering the strong public denunciation of terrorism by Indian Muslim community, the security agency can utilise community leaders in restraining the youth from visiting ISIS website or Facebook accounts by holding peace meetings with them. Instead, it is instilling fear of insecurity amongst them and widening the gap of trust between the agencies and community.
Agencies monitor social media
All investigation agencies have their social media task force for monitoring various social media platforms to identify ISIS sympathizers or suspicious chats. These forces identify IP addresses in the India from which ‘likes’ have been placed on pro-ISIS comments made by others. It also marks some IP addresses from where internet users visited websites operated by the terrorist outfit.
The agencies then keep a hawk’s eye on such IP addresses.
Recent arrests
A software techie Anees Ansari was arrested from Mumbai in mid-October 2014 by ATS for allegedly plotting to blow up an American school in BKC. ATS officials said the ISIS inspired Ansari. ATS claimed Ansari has been watching videos and lectures of Syria and ISIS and also checking sites of making weapons. But till now no terror link beyond chat rooms was established by it. He continues to remain in jail.
There are many similar cases. Shah Mudassir and Shoeb Ahmed Khan, two youths from Maharashtra, were allegedly brain-washed by jihadis overseas using Internet chat rooms and were arrested by ATS in November 2014.
A year later in November 2015 Maulana Mujeeb from Maharasthra was arrested by ATS for influencing and radicalizing these youths.
In December 2015, ATS claimed to have busted the Malwani module. It registered a case against Ayaz Sultan and two others of Malwani, Mumbai. The youths were allegedly chatting with jihadis in Iraq.
A 30-year-old Mohammed Sirazudin, a local marketing manager of petroleum major Indian Oil Corporation in Jaipur was arrested by Rajasthan ATS for allegedly urging local youth to join ISIS through social networking sites like Facebook, WhatsApp groups and by another social networking app – Telegram.
Maulana Anzar Shah Qasmi was arrested from Bengaluru in January 2016 by Delhi Police Special Cell for his alleged links to an AQIS module. Delhi Police Special Cell claimed Qasmi had links with the alleged AQIS module in Odisha through Maulana Abdul Rahman, who was also arrested in the case for attempting to recruit people for the AQIS.
A Delhi-based Islamic scholar, Mufti Abdus Sami Qasmi was arrested on February 5, 2016 in connection with the National Investigation Agency’s ‘open FIR’ against ISIS. The NIA, along with the Uttar Pradesh ATS, arrested him from Hardoi. NIA claimed Qasmi had been “delivering provocative and inflammatory speeches in support of the Caliphate” since 2014 but was never summoned or warned before his actual arrest in February 2016.
More than 11 youths were arrested by NIA in a predawn raid from Hyderabad in June 2016 and alleged it to be a module of ISIS that was planning to explode bombs in India.
A 31-year old Naser Bin Yafai Chaus, a civil contractor from Parbhani,Maharashtra was arrested last week for being in touch with handler of ISIS in Syria using various chatrooms for the past one year.
Another youth Shahid Khan, 25, was arrested on July 20 from Parbhani under the same allegations of chatting with handlers of ISIS and was following their instructions.
There are many such cases of arrest in last couple of years but none of these youths or their parents was warned before these youth allegedly went ahead in furthering their chats with the ISIS handlers but were kept under surveillance for some period and then arrested. Similar was the case with Maulanas who were never reprimanded for their speeches that the agencies were monitoring and finding rabid.