New Delhi, March 7 In the Faridabad module case, investigators found that Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) had managed to infiltrate a medical institute and recruit doctors to carry out attacks in India.
The white-collar module had managed to procure over 2,500 kilograms of ammonium nitrate and had planned a series of attacks in and around Delhi.
Intelligence agencies have now learned of another plot, whereby JeM plans to infiltrate colleges and schools in an attempt to radicalize students. Through its propaganda, the group is trying to recruit some boys who, in turn, will spread the ideology among their friends.
The purpose of having such modules involving school and college-going students is part of a long-term plan by JeM, an official said.
Both JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan have adopted such strategies, and currently, they want to implement them in India.
Recruiting students at such young ages and radicalizing them works well for these groups in the long run. By the time these students are 20 or 25, they will be so highly radicalized that they will be ready to carry out attacks across the country, the official added.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had earlier this week arrested a student from Mumbai after it was learned that he was allegedly part of a JeM module.
Ayan Shaikh, the accused, had been in Mumbai for six months. He was in contact with several young people and was trying to radicalize and recruit them into JeM.
He had managed to radicalize two students and had even convinced them to travel abroad and undergo training to carry out terror attacks, the investigation found. The ATS, however, managed to thwart the plot.
An Intelligence Bureau official said that such attempts are being made in various states.
JeM realizes that students do not easily come under the radar. Moreover, this is a long-term game that the group is playing, and it wants to build an army of highly radicalized terrorists.
The official explained that the group does not seem to be in a hurry to recruit a large number of students. It is trying to do so gradually and is planning for the next five to ten years. This way, it will have a considerable number of recruits to carry out strikes in the country.
Another official said that the idea is not to have a group of students sit together and plan attacks. The plan is not to have a dedicated module comprising a certain number of recruits. In the Faridabad case, JeM realized that having too many people in a module proved to be risky. If there are more than three people in a module, their communication is tracked. There is also a chance that one of the members will act irrationally, which will eventually lead to their exposure.
In the student module, the group would like them to either operate individually as lone wolves or as buddy pairs. This reduces the risk of the members being exposed to security agencies. Ideally, the group is pushing for a lone wolf system.
Either the lone actor acts on his own by choosing the target, or he is instructed by a handler on what he should be doing.
Officials said that preventing this is crucial. If the group manages to build an army of students over the years, it would be a dangerous situation. Since there would be no urgency for these recruits to act immediately, the group gets more time to radicalize them.
If they are radicalized for three to five years, it is impossible to break such recruits, and their commitment levels would be extremely high, another official said.
