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New Delhi, November 22 (IANS) Intelligence agencies have warned that efforts are being made to promote radicalization across the country. While promoting militancy has been an ongoing affair in India, agencies have warned that efforts are being made to radicalize a large number of people and set up white-collar modules on the lines of the one busted in Faridabad.
Intelligence agencies are concerned that the country should not be concerned about radicalization of professionals in India alone. Indian students abroad have also become targets now.
ISI agents are targeting Indian students studying abroad with the aim of radicalizing them. Most of these students will eventually return to India after completing their education and those who are radicalized are a major threat to the system, an official said.
An Intelligence Bureau official said they are looking into cases not only within India but also occurring abroad.
ISI is especially targeting those students who are studying medical or engineering. This has become the new norm where Pakistan-based operators are picking up students from medical and engineering colleges. White-collar terrorists are more lethal and their profession provides them with a cover that often results in them remaining undetected.
Moreover they are more efficient in handling the web and this helps them to communicate and plan discreetly.
Inputs received by the agencies reveal that the ISI has formed a team to identify Indian students who have taken admission for engineering or medicine in the US, UK, Germany and Australia.
Besides, officials are also investigating the history of around 12,000 students who were studying medicine in Bangladesh at the time of the 2024 protests that led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina from power.
An official said that after Hasina’s ouster, Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, had launched a major campaign to identify, radicalize and recruit Indian students studying medicine.
ISI has also contacted many fundamentalist clerics in different countries to target and indoctrinate Indian students. The ISI intends to keep them ready to attack as soon as they return to India.
ISI is trying to create modules like Faridabad. Indian agencies fear that similar modules are being created, but with students from India studying abroad. While the Faridabad module was busted, it still managed to function secretly since 2001. Communications never went out and the plan was made in the most secret manner.
Members of the Faridabad module communicated only through encrypted chat applications or in the hospital. They discussed their plans in the university and also in their hostels. These are generally considered low-risk areas by intelligence agencies.
The members of these modules used to discuss their plans till late night. However they never came on the radar as they were called academic circles created for group study. During these discussions, they talked about logistics and reconnaissance.
After the Faridabad module was busted, ISI realized that the scope of investigation would be higher on such activities. To avoid such investigation and expose, ISI is now targeting Indian students studying abroad. An official said, he wants these students to create similar modules when they return to their countries.
Another official said that Bangladesh is under the highest scrutiny among all the countries. This is because ISI, in collaboration with Jamaat, has created an entire eco-system to radicalize Indian students, especially in medical colleges.
–IANS
Vicky/Raad