Unemployed youths being roped in by ISIS 

Kolkata: Unemployed youths preferably from Muslim
community are being roped in by handlers of terror groups like ISIS and JMB to
expand their networks in border districts of West Bengal.

Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB) has been targeting unemployed youths and ISIS too could be
following its tactics.

The recent
arrest of 25-year-old Mohammed Musiruddin has exposed the presence of the
terror group in the state, particularly in the districts bordering Bangladesh
including Burdwan, Murshidabad and Birbhum, a top CID official of West Bengal
said on the condition of anonymity.

The group has
also spread its tentacles in different pockets of the city, the official said
describing the Khagragarh blast in 2014 as a clinching proof of the existence
of its bases in the state.

Burdwan
district entered the terror map in October 2014 when two suspected JMB
terrorists were killed while making improvised explosive devices at a rented
house at Khagragarh.

In fact, NIA
in its supplementary chargesheet in connection with the Khagragarh blast had
claimed that JMB had been recruiting youths from the border districts of West
Bengal.

Unemployed
youths are the main targets of terror groups. JMB had been doing that and the
ISIS has started the same process, the official said adding that this fact has
again got a confirmation during the grilling of Musiruddin, who was part of the
of recruitment network.

They have
handlers who supervise one to two districts and keep a tab on educated but
unemployed youths including girls in the age group of 16-30 years preferably
from the Muslim community, he said.

The
brainwashing starts from the first meeting which helps them convince the youth
to join the group. And from there they are moved to the training camps in the
bordering districts, the officer said referring to the arrest of a 19-year-old
polytechnic student at Durgapur by NIA this March.

The name of
Ashique Ahmed, alias Raja, a resident of Hooghly’s Dhaniakhali, had surfaced
during an interrogation of one Abdus Sami Qasmi, who was arrested by the agency
from Uttar Pradesh in February.

Pointing to a
2015 report of the Intelligence Bureau, the officer said the posters were put
up in several districts of the state asking the youths to join the JMB.

In West
Bengal, districts like Burdwan, Nadia, Murshidabad, North 24 Parganas, Malda
and Birbhum have been witnessing increasing fascination for the ISIS.

The state’s
secular and cosmopolitan nature has made it quite easy for the terror groups
from across the border to use it as a corridor for smuggling of arms,
explosives and fake currency notes and the city as a transit route, he said.

Procuring
ration card, passport, voter ID cards and all sorts of documents to establish
their Indian citizenship are easy and sleeper cells help illegal immigrants in
getting them. Marrying local women is also another process of establishing
yourself as an Indian citizen. But that is actually a curtain to cover the
actual activity, he said.

PTI