ISIS using radical content translated into South Indian languages to recruit people: NIA

New Delhi [India], August 12 (ANI): The National Investigation Agency has shared inputs mentioning that the proscribed terrorist organization ISIS is spreading its radical Jihadist propaganda among the Muslim youth in India through propaganda materials translated into South-Indian languages, especially Malayalam.

National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials, privy to the ongoing development in “Voice of Hind case”, shared the inputs mentioning that this was the way that the ISIS adopted for recruiting and radicalising other people. Sources in the agency said that the purpose of the terror outfit seems to create more sleeper cells.

These inputs came during the interrogation of Jufri Jawhar Damudi, a resident of Bhatkal in Karnataka who was arrested on August 6 during NIA’s raids at two places in Bhatkal in connection with the “Voice of Hind case”. ISIS terrorists operating from various conflict zones along with ISIS cadres in India have created a network by assuming pseudo-online identities wherein ISIS-related propaganda material is disseminated for radicalizing and recruiting members to the fold of ISIS.

Jufri was in direct touch with ISIS leadership and operating from the Karnataka region, officials in the NIA told ANI based on inputs received after interrogation of the accused. Jufri was in touch with ISIS leadership currently operating out of the “Af-Pak” region which provided him propaganda material and also gave directions for its dissemination.

For this purpose, the NIA officials said that Jufri had created multiple pseudonymous IDs on encrypted chat platforms and was also a member of various online propaganda channels of ISIS. Jufri was in touch with Aijaz Ahangar, the so-called wali of IS Jammu and Kashmir. Ahangar was arrested by Afghan forces after the Kabul Gurudwara attack in March last year in which 25 Afghan Sikhs were killed.

Jufri was also in touch with Ahangar’s son-in-law Huzaifa Bakistani, who was killed in a drone strike in 2019. “Jufri was translating all the radical content which was being sent from the Af-Pak agents by these guys into South Indian languages, especially into Malayalam,” said an NIA official, requesting anonymity.

“And that is how they were recruiting and radicalising other people because they have the material in that particular language,” the officer continued. (ANI)