The Centre has alerted the Bengal Government of possible ISIS activities in the State. According to sources, the State Home Department has received a message from the Union Government on increased ISIS activities in the State, particularly the border districts where the terror outfit has started a recruitment campaign.
New Delhi had conveyed its apprehensions to the Directors General of Police in 13 States, including Bengal, during a meeting early this month. In the meeting, the Central Home Department had raised concern regarding increased terror activities in the districts bordering Bangladesh.
In a follow-up of the said meeting, the Centre has reminded the State on how the terror moles had resorted to wall-writings in smaller towns or villages in the border areas. Through these writings they are appealing for recruitments sources said adding the State police and intelligence agencies have been asked to keep on maximum alert.
It has also been found that most of the ISIS sympathisers come from educated and affluent classes and so the police and intelligence agencies have been asked to keep an eye on the cyber world.
Apart from keeping a watch on the internet, the Centre has also advised the State Government to engage religious leaders of a particular community to fan out in the villages to combat terror ideas.
In addition to introduce “counter-indoctrination”, the State also has been advised to raise a special force to combat the new kind of terror. This would include deciphering cyber languages, quick reaction teams to apprehend the moles etc.
Bengal hit the national headlines when an engineering student called Mehendi from Kolkata’s Koikhali area was arrested last December from Bengaluru. He was one of the 13 ISIS Indian recruits, sources said.
Since his arrest, the central intelligence agencies had been keeping a watch in border districts of the State whence it found increased ISIS activities, sources said.
Bengal had been a terror transit point from quite some time with Bangladesh terror outfits like Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh setting up recruitment camps and hideouts in the State for the past few years.
Things were exposed post Khagragarh blast in October last year when two JMB militants were killed and several others were subsequently arrested by the NIA breaking a large terror network.