IN 2014, THE intelligence machinery in Kerala discovered that a few young men were being radicalised by the online sermons of Islamist preacher Zahran Hashim of Sri Lanka, and that they were establishing “online contacts” with like-minded radicals in the island nation.
With social media diminishing geographical and cultural boundaries, the young radicals in the two countries had found common ground to connect with each other. Drawing them closer were the attacks against Muslims around the world and the un-Islamic ways of life they saw around them. As their numbers grew, the radicals found what they were looking for—the freedom and secrecy to gather online—in encrypted messaging platforms like Telegram.
One such group formed in the dark web had young people from Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Sri Lanka. On April 29, the National Investigation Agency arrested a member of that group, a resident of Palakkad in Kerala named Riyas A., also known as Riyas Aboobackar and Abu Dujana. “Riyas confessed that he wanted to carry out a suicide attack in Kerala,” said an NIA official.
The NIA said his arrest was connected to the case of 14 people from Kasaragod leaving India to join Islamic State in 2016. Riyas’s confession may be just the tip of an iceberg. The links between Hashim’s National Thowheed Jamaath, which has been identified as the group behind the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka, and radicals in India could run long and deep. The police in Sri Lanka believe that NTJ may have received ideological inspiration and logistical assistance from Islamic State to carry out the blasts.
“The online links between the radicalised youth [in India] and Hashim were forged four years ago, and they were on our radar,” said a senior intelligence officer in Kerala. “They were not found to be indulging in any violent activities, but we continued to keep a watch on them.”
Intelligence officers in Tamil Nadu were apparently more worried. They were concerned about the growing influence of Hashim’s hate speeches against non-Muslims and the growth in the number of suspected local NTJ cadres. Hashim’s 2017 visit to India kept the sleuths on their toes.
Last year, the NIA and the intelligence wing of the Tamil Nadu Police carried out several raids in cities like Coimbatore, unravelling an IS module and arresting six persons. Interrogations revealed that NTJ was planning a terror strike in Sri Lanka. “Precise intelligence was shared with the Sri Lankan authorities,” said an Indian counter-terror officer. “But what neither side could determine was the scale of the attack.”
The NIA inquiry in the Kasaragod case led investigators to Abdul Rashid Abdulla alias Abu Isa, the alleged India head of IS. Abdulla, who is absconding, was instrumental in recruiting more than a dozen Malayalis to fight for IS in Afghanistan. Investigators said Riyas had been listening to Abdulla’s speeches and circulating audio clips online to instigate others to carry out terror attacks in India. Over the years, said the NIA, Riyas expanded his chatrooms and began communicating online with Abdul Khayoom alias Abu Khalid, a native of Valapattanam in Kerala who is alleged to have gone to Syria to join IS.
Former CBI director D.R. Kaarthikeyan said the radicalisation of communities in Sri Lanka and the enmity among them had become a matter of concern. Kaarthikeyan had investigated the Rajiv Gandhi assassination in 1991, and had been tasked with assessing the security situation in 1989 after the Indian Peace Keeping Force was sent to Sri Lanka to fight the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
“There was no end in sight to the conflict,” he said. “So, when I was there, I visited all places of worship—churches, temples and mosques. We even held meetings in mosques. I recall that there was no such inter-religious tension then. The subsequent developments in the subcontinent and around the world have emboldened certain elements in every religion to take extreme views. It could be a result of ignorance and influence of radical elements. It always starts with a handful of people, before it grows to such a level as we are witnessing in Sri Lanka today.”
Kaarthikeyan said both India and Sri Lanka needed to strengthen their intelligence capabilities to keep direct tabs on sleeper cells. “A sleeper cell of a terror organisation can be dormant for decades,” he said. “They (the members of the cell) continue to live like ordinary citizens and, sometimes, may even want to return to ordinary life. But once they are part of a terror group, they can be activated anytime. Weapons, money, motivation or pressure could force them to cooperate.”
Such unmonitored sleeper cells could have assisted the perpetrators behind the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka. While the inquiry into the blasts could determine the extent of Hashim’s terror network and its alleged links to IS modules in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, it may not be able to prevent attacks. For that, say experts, all sleeper cells in the two countries need to be identified.