The Hindu : New Delhi News : A daunting task for security agencies

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 29, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

A daunting task for security agencies

Most obvious reason behind inclusion of smaller groups for terrorist operations is that it helps evade detection, feels Devesh K. Pandey

Keeping a tab on the activities of small organisations that are sometimes roped in by terrorist groups to carry out strikes is a daunting exercise for security agencies. Some of these organisations subsequently get "ideologically" aligned with prominent terrorist outfits and grow up to become a serious menace to national security.

One such organisation is the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which has recently been declared unlawful for its activities prejudicial to harmony in the country. SIMI was founded way back in 1977 as a front of the Jamait-e-Islam-I-Hind (HEIH) for students and young men in Uttar Pradesh. It slowly began expanding its network and declared itself independent in 1993. Subsequently HEIH detached itself from SIMI, but the "radical" outfit kept growing and a stage came when it allegedly built up contacts with extremist outfits in other parts of the world.

The Indian Government found that apart from extending clandestine support to terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir, SIMI had begun indulging in whipping up communal passions through propaganda materials. In 1992, enforcement agencies had come across evidence indicating SIMI's links with terrorism. Subsequently they unearthed a nexus between the organisation and the terrorist outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, which was responsible for over a dozen cases of strikes leading to the death of 15 people in Uttar Pradesh and the Capital in 2000-01. SIMI was also behind several incidents of violence in southern States. After it was declared a banned outfit, about 250 SIMI activists were arrested across the country.

A senior police officer said: "Like SIMI, there may be other groups which can be exploited by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to create disturbance in India. In another such case, ISI had initiated scores of followers of an earlier obscure sect, Deendar Anjuman, to carry out explosions at religious places in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa between May and July 2000."

The most obvious reason behind inclusion or creation of smaller and new groups for terrorist operations is that it helps evade detection. "Bigger outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami and Hizb-ul Mujahideen are kept under close surveillance and the slightest mistake on their part becomes an opportunity for us to neutralise their modules. But it is very difficult to do so in the case of smaller organisations," say senior police officers.

There are different ways through which organisations are roped in to spread the network of terror. In several cases it has been found that members or leaders of such groups are identified by ISI agents during their visit to Pakistan. They are then brainwashed into joining "jehad" or extending logistical support to "jehadis", for which they are promised full financial assistance. "The motive to incite an organisation to commit terrorist acts can also be achieved by planting extremist elements in the set-up," say senior cops. Though there appears to be no foolproof mechanism to counter such tactics of introducing "unknown" faces of terror, security experts believe that proper counter-intelligence measures and a pro-active approach can be of help.

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