Amid a strong security grid and controlled communications network in Jammu and Kashmir post-abrogation of Article 370, Pakistan’s covert agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is likely to exploit the services of online terror motivators to radicalize and recruit gullible youth for suicide bombings in the Indian hinterland and the Valley.
With the recent scrapping of Article 370 and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir State into two Union Territories and a significant presence of security forces on the ground in the Valley, the Pakistan-sponsored terror groups are rattled according to Intelligence chatters and unwilling to cross over into the Indian side as of now, sources said.
According to the inputs, a number of Pakistani terror cadres are reluctant in entering the Valley to carry out subversive activities and been articulating that the so called jehad is a responsibility of the Kashmiris themselves.
In this backdrop, ISI could resort to online radicalization of people in the Indian hinterland amid a lockdown in the Valley. When the telecommunication and Internet restrictions are eased in Jammu and Kashmir in due course, the ISI would seek radicalization and recruitment of youth in the Valley to carry out terror attacks to register Pakistan’s presence in Kashmir post scrapping of Article 370.
The ISI has been working 24 x 7 to gather content to malign India and Indian security forces by falsely projecting and propagating that normal law and order duties by the security forces in the Valley as excesses against the Kashmiris.
The ISI has already gathered data through social media platforms wherein a number of citizens have expressed their views against the scrapping of Article 370 and the restrictions on telecommunication networks in Jammu and Kashmir.
ISI already has gained expertise in hoodwinking a number of security forces’ personnel through honey trapping initiatives to gather Intelligence.
“The ISI would now transfer the knowhow to exploit the social media platforms and one to one communication apps like WhatsApp and Messenger to the terror groups for radicalizing and recruiting people in the Indian mainland as well as in Jammu and Kashmir,” an official said, adding that recruiting people through online mode in the Valley is relatively easy as a section of the population is already radicalized due to the propaganda of terror banned groups like JKLF as also from the Hurriyat.
Since physical entry of terror recruiters is virtually next to impossible in J&K in the wake of strengthened security apparatus, the ISI is most likely to exploit the technological tools to further its terror agenda in the Valley. Such a shift in terror tactic by the Pakistani forces is also likely as Islamabad has been squeezed in terms of operational manoeuvrability after scrapping of the special status in the border State that has been victim of the arc of terror attacks for the last three decades by the Pakistani ISI-Army combine, said a counter-terrorism expert and added that the telecom restrictions should continue for some time till the time J&K police and counterparts in other States are fully geared to monitor the social media platforms.