Teen tells police IS would attack India by 2020.
By Sreekanth A Nair
A 16-year-old girl from Pune was sent to a de-radicalization program after being found to have links with IS terrorists and sympathizers within India and outside the country.
A report in India Today said that the girl told officials that the Islamic State is planning to launch a terrorist attack in India by 2020. They are also in the process of expanding their network in India.
Pune Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) questioned the girl last week, who was under the surveillance of the squad for a long time.
“The girl was interrogated by the ATS last week after monitoring her movements for many days on getting information about her. It confirmed her initiation by the IS. The interrogation of the girl revealed that she was ready to go to any extent to carry out the IS directive,” Pune ATS officer Bhanupratap Barge told Press Trust of India.
The girl was allegedly in touch with the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) official Mohammed Sirajuddin, who was arrested for his links with Islamic State militant group.
Sirajuddin had created a group of IS sympathizers on Facebook and WhatsApp, which he used to spread the ideals of the terrorist group. The girl was also a member of the group.
She was getting ready to visit Syria or Iran soon since the terrorist group offered to bear the expenses for her medical education. Investigators have found that she got attracted to the IS while watching a documentary in a television channel and had followed Al-Jazeera channel for updates on the organization.
The Times of India reported that she managed to maintain contact with an IS agent in Sri Lanka. She has used online platforms for building contact with IS sympathizers. She has more than 200 friends on Facebook and has used WhatsApp and Twitter to get in touch with them.
ATS has also found that she has exchanged e-mails with some people in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir and Karnataka and maintained contacts with people in countries like the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and those in Europe.
According to the investigators, the girl is a brilliant IX standard student studying in a convent school in the city. She belongs to a well-off family too.
Currently, she is undergoing a de-radicalization program with the support of her parents and religious leaders and has shown tremendous improvement in a few days. The ATS is hopeful of getting her detached off the ideas of extremism.
“We have not registered a complaint against the girl because she is a minor and she did not radicalize others. As a part of our national program, we have undertaken an exercise to de-radicalize her with support from her parents for the past eight days,” ATS officer Bhanupratap Barge told the Times of India.