Brainwashing before bloodshed: The Islamic State’s new playbook in South India

New Delhi, Dec 13 The Islamic State has been on a recruitment spree and aims to set up its biggest module in South India, with officials saying that its focus, for some time, has been the region as the outfit has been gaining more traction here when compared to the rest of the country.

Security agencies have been busting several attempts, but have learnt that the problem is much bigger than one would have anticipated.

The Islamic State was relatively quiet in South India before the Popular Front of India (PFI) was banned. Today, it is scouting for people and is specifically targeting those who went underground post the ban on the PFI.

Agencies such as the National Investigating Agency (NIA) are keeping a close watch on some madrasas, especially in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which have become recruitment camps for the Islamic State. Many such madrasas posing as Arabic schools have cropped up, but in reality, these have become propaganda and recruitment camps for the Islamic State, the NIA has learnt.

An NIA official said that their drive is to dismantle the Islamic State-linked networks that are operating in this part of the country.

The scale of the recruitment and the agenda of the Islamic State came to light when the agency filed a charge sheet against Jameel Basha, a student of the Madras Arabic College.

Based on this investigation, the agency learnt that Mohammed Hussain, Irshath, Ahmed Ali, Aboo Hanifa, Jawahar Sadiq, Sheik Dawood, and Raja Mohammed were also part of the same network.

The Islamic State has found many takers in South India and hence wants to capitalise on this. The job of the Islamic State was, in fact, made easier by the PFI, which for years spread the agenda of the Islamic State. It was the PFI that helped the outfit recruit 21 members from Kerala who eventually joined the Islamic State Khorasan Province in Afghanistan.

An Intelligence Bureau official said that the current drive by the outfit is to spread its ideology as far as possible. The outfit is finding takers, and hence it has decided to enhance this drive. It has been setting up camps under the garb of providing free Arabic classes. Many unknowingly join these classes, and the fact that they are advertised as free only helps the cause of the Islamic State.

Another official explained that once such schools are set up and students join, they are taught Arabic genuinely. These classes are taken in an offline mode. After a couple of months, the classes become online, and this is when the radicalisation takes place. The students are put on Zoom calls, WhatsApp, and then Telegram, and this is where clerics from both India as well as abroad join the classes and preach the radical Islamic State agenda.

Many stay back while some quit, and those who continue are sooner or later indoctrinated and recruited into the Islamic State. Sometimes the classes are live online, and at other instances, pre-recorded videos are played for the students, officials say.

Once the indoctrination, radicalisation and recruitment take place, these youth are told to scout for more persons. They meet with their friends and explain the importance of such classes.

This is a dangerous trend that South India has been witnessing. The aim for now appears not to carry out attacks, but only focusing on recruiting as many people as possible and then brainwashing them.

This is a very dangerous trend, an official said, adding that such a tactic changes the mindset of a lot of people in society. Once the numbers are large, then these persons would carry out attacks, and most of them would be lone wolf strikes, Intelligence agencies say.

Experts warn that such a tactic, which aims at brainwashing people instead of training to stage attacks, is frightening since it changes the outlook of a large majority in society. Such persons are lethal as they would indulge in a further radicalisation process, insist on the Sharia law, preach to women on how to dress, tell people what to watch and what not do. The agencies have to work at a breakneck speed to dismantle this network, which has all the signs of spreading like wildfire, experts say.

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