Doctor, techie, scientist... terror's new recruits?

[Ray]

Doctor, techie, scientist... terror's new recruits?
B Raman

The 18 Muslim suspects arrested since August 29 in operations coordinated by the Bangalore police are presently under interrogation.

The indications till now are that the suspects, who have been picked up from Bangalore and Hubli in Karnataka, Hyderabad and Maharashtra, had come together with the objective of assassinating certain individuals identified with the Hindutva ideology.

Though there seems to be some suspicion of their contacts with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) of Pakistan and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Bangladesh, they constituted a new indigenous group with no suspected links with any of the indigenous terrorist/extremist organisations that have been active so far, such as Al Umma of Tamil Nadu, the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM).

The Bangalore police seem to have succeeded in penetrating and dismantling them even before they could give themselves an organisational infrastructure and an ideological basis. They were a group of individuals self-motivated by viewing of jihadi websites such as that of al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and brought together by shared anger against Hindutva elements without attempts to form a central command and control.

The conspiracy seems to have been squashed by the police at a very early stage. This is evident from the absence of any major recoveries of arms and ammunition and explosive material from them.

Whereas other jihadi organisations that had operated in India in the past had made dual use of hand-held weapons and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), this group was still in the stage of hand-held weapons and had not started thinking in terms of IEDs. Anger over social and religious discrimination and communal grievances tend to motivate the educated, thinking elements more than others. It is, therefore, not surprising that all the suspects came from the educated segments of the Muslim community . It is also to be noted that the educated elements had studied or were studying subjects such as medicine, computer science, journalism etc and not humanities.

This trend of the gravitation of such elements to leadership positions in the jihadi organisations had been noticed in the case of the IM too, which had some good IT experts , including one in Pune who had occupied an important position in the Indian branch of a well-known foreign IT company.

Examples of enraged students belonging to such professions or aspiring to join them gravitating to extremism has been seen in the past not only in India, but also in Indonesia and western countries.
A disquieting fact is a junior scientist of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) joining this group. It is not yet clear whether he joined it on his own or whether he was spotted, motivated and recruited and what was the purpose. If he had joined on his own because of anger against some Hindutva elements, that is understandable . But, if he had been recruited to penetrate the DRDO, that would be ominous.

According to the police, they made a breakthrough after keeping some of the suspects under surveillance for four months. There has been no indication of any significant electronic intelligence through interception of their telephone conversations.
It has been reported that the suspects were communicating with each other through Skype. This could be the reason for the evidently meagre ELINT (electronic signals intelligence ). This would indicate that our capability for the interception of communications through the internet continues to be inadequate. This needs attention.

As regards external ramifications, there are suspicions of links with elements in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia — with the training possibly coming from elements in Pakistan and the coordination from individuals in Saudi Arabia. These suspicions need to be developed further.

The motivation of the group is still to be determined. Did they have a strategic motivation of sustained terrorism or had they merely come together due to common anger over the grievances of Muslims in order to carry out some assassinations, which one may not be able to characterise as terrorism. The forensic evidence available so far is not adequate to reconstruct the conspiracy in a manner that will carry conviction to the courts and the Muslim community.

Keeping all this in view, it might be better for the government of India to direct the National Investigation Agency to take over the investigation after reaching a consensus with the three state governments. The writer is additional secretary (retd), Research & Analysis Wing

Doctor, techie, scientist... terror’s new recruits? - The Times of India

Many interesting issues are raised with this new happening and that is why I have posted in separately so that the questions that are going abegging are not lost in the maze of other extraneous issues that are there on other threads.

• Earlier the terror organisations and its foot-soldiers were basically from the lumpen elements of the society and so it was understandable that such elements could be indoctrinated since beyond religion, they had not much of a societal life. But now it appears that the educated and upward mobile people, who are savoring the essential goodness of life, are also joining in the fray. Is it:

(a) That because they are educated they perceive more acutely and incisively that the society is not giving its due to the Muslim?
community.

(b) That because they are educated they feel that Islam per se is globally under attack and hence they should chip in? Targeting India is purely because of location and not out of animus?

(c) That they are being recruited by the ISI so as to make their operations sophisticated as also to throw the Indian intelligence off the scent?

• Police Approach to Investigation and Arrest.

The usual way is to keep the suspects under surveillance, let the organisation grow. As it grow, the surveillance is stepped up so that the net to be case increases whereby more elements can be put out of circulation when the net is pulled in.

In this case, the terror organisation has not been allowed to grow and instead, even before they could get into the act, they have been rounded up.

Is it because:

(a) The State Govt is wary that the communal situation in the State, which is already nothing to write home about, given the slur of moral policing, did not want a incendiary situation to develop, having learnt from the aftermath of Gujarat, and so preferred to nip it in the bud?

(b) The State Govt does not wish to build a reputation that their State is the next hub of terrorism after Hyderabad, since this is a BJP ruled State and hence sensitive to appear appeasing the Muslims.

(c) They have good reasons to believe that the organisation has made inroads already and so the time was to act, but have not released all the details?

However, if as Raman states - The forensic evidence available so far is not adequate to reconstruct the conspiracy in a manner that will carry conviction to the courts and the Muslim community, then these premature arrests make no sense and instead making the whole issue appear perverse.

 

[blank_quest]

 

[A chauhan]

This happens when a party like Congress injects a false victim complex for the sake of vote bank i.e. Sachar commitee, political parties like Congress and MIM are responsible for such radicalisation. OTOH it's proved that good and higher education can not eradicate extremist religious teachings, just watch 9/11 special on Nat Geo all the day today.

 

[natarajan]

Many interesting issues are raised with this new happening and that is why I have posted in separately so that the questions that are going abegging are not lost in the maze of other extraneous issues that are there on other threads.

• Earlier the terror organisations and its foot-soldiers were basically from the lumpen elements of the society and so it was understandable that such elements could be indoctrinated since beyond religion, they had not much of a societal life. But now it appears that the educated and upward mobile people, who are savoring the essential goodness of life, are also joining in the fray. Is it:

(a) That because they are educated they perceive more acutely and incisively that the society is not giving its due to the Muslim?
community.

(b) That because they are educated they feel that Islam per se is globally under attack and hence they should chip in? Targeting India is purely because of location and not out of animus?

(c) That they are being recruited by the ISI so as to make their operations sophisticated as also to throw the Indian intelligence off the scent?

• Police Approach to Investigation and Arrest.

The usual way is to keep the suspects under surveillance, let the organisation grow. As it grow, the surveillance is stepped up so that the net to be case increases whereby more elements can be put out of circulation when the net is pulled in.

In this case, the terror organisation has not been allowed to grow and instead, even before they could get into the act, they have been rounded up.

Is it because:

(a) The State Govt is wary that the communal situation in the State, which is already nothing to write home about, given the slur of moral policing, did not want a incendiary situation to develop, having learnt from the aftermath of Gujarat, and so preferred to nip it in the bud?

(b) The State Govt does not wish to build a reputation that their State is the next hub of terrorism after Hyderabad, since this is a BJP ruled State and hence sensitive to appear appeasing the Muslims.

(c) They have good reasons to believe that the organisation has made inroads already and so the time was to act, but have not released all the details?

However, if as Raman states - The forensic evidence available so far is not adequate to reconstruct the conspiracy in a manner that will carry conviction to the courts and the Muslim community, then these premature arrests make no sense and instead making the whole issue appear perverse.

They are educated as kongress gave special reservation to them but what about reservation in it jobs and private hospitals ,so if they provide promotion and recruitment reservation in private concerns also,they may think of stopping terrorism after a decade

 

[anoop_mig25]

Why such things happens in india only . i mean there are engineers /doctors in another muslim countries like pakistan / indeonsia but they donot join terror organistaion or carry out morchas as they did india for what is happening in myanmar. and i can understand engineers can`t have job but doctors they can start their own clinic . even engineers would lends job one day or other but that doesnt mean to go on rampage

 

[Ray]

Why such things happens in india only . i mean there are engineers /doctors in another muslim countries like pakistan / indeonsia but they donot join terror organistaion or carry out morchas as they did india for what is happening in myanmar. and i can understand engineers can`t have job but doctors they can start their own clinic . even engineers would lends job one day or other but that doesnt mean to go on rampage

The reason why it is happening in India is what is worrisome that the stereotype of the lumpen element being fundamentalists is giving way to the educated.

What is the core issue that encourages terrorism?

Basically, it is the feeling of having been 'deprived' is what causes terrorism.

Therefore, to address a complex issue with a simple answer would be that education should allow a person to see the issue in its holity and should therefore be more rational and moderate.

The fact that education is not opening up the mind from seeing the issue from a narrow point of view in a broader rational vista is what is scary and worrisome.

It is also true that (as some poster mentioned) that unless the Muslims are in majority and imposing their views on others, they feel 'threatened'. That maybe true since it is so enshrined in their scripture where unless there is Dar ul Islam, there can be no eternal peace. A far fetched idea, but it could be the reason. That apart, I wonder why should anyone feel 'threatened' or even 'deprived' when every single community in India have good reasons to feel deprived and threatened, the society, the laws and its dispensation being so lopsided and queer!

 

[Ray]

Swami's contention in the video about Singapore is misplaced that it was able to control the communal discontent by housing equality etc.

That is wrong.

They have draconian laws and that can never be applied in India.

 

[natarajan]

Not only one religion it is all people deprived of seeing the level of scam and corruption but normal man has to work hard for each and every penny,then pay them as vat,income tax but pain to see them getting misused.Difference is they become terrorist based on religion instead of seeing other peoples status