Need Specialists To Crack Rise Of Online Digital Jihad, Terror Indoctrination

The prime minister has taken personal interest in the strategy and wants a special team to be set up that will work on the challenges of digital jihad.

Digital jihad and cross-border infiltration of terrorists have been the two biggest challenges for the Narendra Modi government in the last two years even though there has been no major strike in the hinterland. But this, security officials feel, is just "good fortune" and no reason to pat each other's back. However, the government has managed to get a grip on the situation in the Northeast. In a rare act, security forces last year crossed over to Myanmar and carried out an operation against the NSCN (K) soon after the group killed 18 Army personnel in Assam.

SECURITY THREATS

In case of the Maoist insurgency, the violence is come down and the Centre along with the states is focussing on getting the rebels to surrender. There have been 400 surrenders already whereas the number for 2015 in the corresponding period was 150.

In the last two years, the ISIS threat is making security officials anxious even though the government has downplayed it. But the security establishment is alarmed at the high rate of online indoctrination.

In fact the government is trying to keep pace with the rapidly changing dynamics of ISIS that is making efforts to lure Indian youth. A recent video featuring Indians who joined the group and focusing on India has worried anti-terror officials.

With no concrete mechanism to tackle this threat of youth getting swayed by terror handlers, who are radicalising them on the cyber space, is giving jitters to the security establishment. The government has put in place a countrywide counter-radicalisation strategy to ensure those brainwashed by ISIS ideology can be brought back to the mainstream. This approach has been successful and allowed intelligence agencies to approach the Muslim clergy and leaders to reach out to the community. "Knee-jerk arrests have been discouraged those crossing a certain threshold moving from being radicalised to actually planning terror acts are being taken in custody," said an official.

While 49 youth have been arrested for alleged ISIS links, there are several who were let off after being intercepted and were put through several sessions of counselling. The government has been successful in ensuring the return of many ISIS-bound recruits from the UAE using diplomatic channels. Officials say monitoring the Internet is a tough task and there hasn't been a breakthrough in scaling up the mechanism or the technical knowledge for it. A 24x7 social media monitoring cell is being planned but the plan is still at a nascent stage. "The Internet has broken geographical barriers and time has come to use specialists to crack the online terror indoctrination," said a counter-terror official.

PREVENTIVE MEASURES

The prime minister has taken personal interest in the strategy and wants a special team to be set up that will work on the challenges of digital jihad. While there have been no major terror attacks but the international border with Pakistan has been vulnerable to suspected infiltrations leading to a series of skirmishes between Pakistan based terrorists and security forces.

The attack on the Pathankot airbase earlier this year is a reminder of the critical gaps in the security along the border. In Jammu and Kashmir too, infiltration has gone up but what is also worrying is the increasing number of locals joining militant groups, especially after Afzal Guru's hanging.

Courtesy: India Today