For a variety of reasons, the Islamic State would not become a powerful terrorist presence in India, argue many in the country’s security establishment.
All of them say there is no evidence in any of the inputs on IS members and sympathisers from India to show there are enclaves of IS sympathisers, enabling the environment for organising terror attacks. One officer who has closely studied all IS followers from India said the ideological fervour among IS’s Indian sympathisers is not as intense as the movement itself. “Most of them had motives other than just ideology, including making a decent living there. Not one, including Areeb Majeed [who went to Syria to join the IS], convinces you that there is widespread sympathy for IS in India, nor do they have any kind of an environment to flourish here,” he said.
Another officer argued that even if there are individuals willing to carry out terrorist attacks in the name of IS, “I can’t see an enabling environment for it. Even lone wolf attacks require some kind of support group and logistics.”
“The government needs to ensure that the political environment is not vitiated, and fringe elements do not take centre stage. If that is done, even those with grievances among Muslims would not find any affinity towards the IS,” a retired intelligence officer said.
'Danger from Pak.-based groups or domestic fringe’
A former intelligence officer warned that “our problems do not come from the success of IS and its brutality.” “Ours are, and would be, domestic or from Pakistan-sponsored groups.”
The retired officer pointed out that not one Indian Muslim joined the Kashmir conflict, though it had always had a strong Islamic undertone to it. And the Afghan Mujahideen movement of the 1980s had never found any echo in India.
“The al-Qaeda and the Taliban were also bogeys that we worried over for a long time. But all that has proved to be wrong. Our troubles would be created either by Pakistan-based groups or by domestic fringe with some local grievances,” he said.
At a meeting in August, the DGPs and Home Secretaries of a dozen States and senior officials of the intelligence agencies agreed that the IS was not a grave threat to India.
“This is a movement whose dynamics are changing by the day. Given what has happened in Bangladesh recently, we should be prepared for some stray incidents,” one senior official said.
Indian agencies have altogether assessed, or interrogated, over 100 people with IS sympathies. Of them, 65 are undergoing de-radicalisation after being in touch with IS recruiters or active sympathisers. Another 55 continue to be under watch. About 20 Indians are thought to be with the IS now.
