Terror groups luring unemployed youth to spread tentacles in Bengal

In eastern India, especially in West Bengal, unemployment is a major issue. Adding to it, West Bengal shares a lengthy border with neighbouring Bangladesh. Taking advantage of these two factors, international terror groups like JMB, Ansarullah Faction and even Islamic State are trying to spread their network in the state.

Kolkata: In eastern India, especially in West Bengal, unemployment is a major issue. Adding to it, West Bengal also shares a lengthy border with neighbouring Bangladesh. Taking advantage of these two factors, international terror groups like JMB, Ansarullah Faction and even Islamic State are trying to spread their network in the state. The aim is to make West Bengal, the headquarters of the terror activities in entire eastern India.

Sometimes through direct interaction and at times through online, they are targeting brainy but unemployed young boys and girls in the state. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police have secured this information from the three JMB terrorists who were arrested by the STF sleuths recently from a colony in the southern outskirts of Kolkata. The investigation officials are worried that because of systematic brainwashing by these terror groups many meritorious but unemployed youths are getting lost from mainstream society.

Take, for example, Prajna Debnath, a resident of Dhanaikhali in the Hooghly district of West Bengal. She went missing from her residence in 2009. In 2016, she got arrested in Bangladesh. However, she is no more Prajna Debnath then. She recrhistened her name to Ayesha Jannat Mohona, an active member of the women cell of JMB. Similar is the case of another youth Sujit Chandra Debnath alias Aal Halif alias Abu Ibrahim. He was arrested in Bengaluru in 2014. This IS handler was a meritorious student of economics before his entry into the terror world.

"The three JMB terrorists arrested recently have confessed about many such plans of the terror groups relating to West Bengal in face of interrogation. Since NIA is also conducting a parallel investigation, we are in regular touch with them exchanging information. However, the matter is quite serious that these international terror groups are successful in brainwashing meritorious but unemployed youths either through direct interaction or through online," an STF official said.

Already, from the laptop, mobile phones, and pen drives, seized from the three arrested JMB members, the STF sleuths have come across the names of top brains of different international terror groups. It is learnt that their target is to establish caliphate rule in wide areas covering Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. However, India is a great hurdle for them to achieve that and hence they want to put pressure on India through its western and eastern sectors.

According to the former deputy commandant and commando officer of the National Security Guard (NSG), Dipanjan Chakraborty, this brainwashing of meritorious but unemployed youth is such a problem that cannot be tackled by any police or anti-terror agency. "Only police personnel at grassroots level can tackle this problem to some extent. The state police authorities should give special training to the constable level personnel on these lines. But unfortunately, this system is not followed in West Bengal. West Bengal police personnel are running short of personnel and hence they are mainly involved in tackling law & order problems. Very few of them are trained or equipped to tackle the sleeper cell woes," he said.