In an apparent response to the Islamic State, a Hindu outfit is training thousands of people — some of them children as young as eight years old — to fight with guns, swords, and rocket launchers. In two years, the Hindu Swabhiman has prepared 15,000 such fighters as part of their “dharma sena“. The outfit is running three training camps in Meerut city and five in Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh. The outfit headquartered is in Dasna, Ghaziabad.
Child soldiers, some of them as young as eight years old have also been enlisted as their soldiers.
According to its leaders, their members are given training on how to use to use swords and firearms. “Our motto is simple – catch them young. We have over 50 training centres all over western UP. Our students are from ages eight to 30. We don’t give guns and swords to children straight away,” said Hindu Swabhiman’s leaders, Chetna Sharma, who is also a member of the VHP’s Durga Vahini.
“For the first six months, we train them mentally. We teach them verses from the Gita. Hindus must not be afraid of death because we are reborn. The children here are fearless,” added Chetna.
At the centre of the group’s efforts is Swami Narsinghanand Saraswati (born Deepak Tyagi), a Hindu ascetic on whose ideology this ‘army’ is being built. He told that he fully supports an extremist Hindu outfit as an answer to ISIS to “fight fire with fire”. He called for support from Hindus all over the country to help them get access to more weapons.
In fact, they have already started reaching out to Hindus in the country by speaking to two panchayats a month, propagating the idea that people should die fighting against “the enemy”.
“At the panchayats, I ask my Hindu lions to be brave and make sure they keep weapons with them at all times,” said Saraswati. “During the Muzaffarnagar riots, we went to the ground and asked people to be armed. All these politicians, who claim credit for saving Hindus, are lying.”
ISIS militants created havoc since establishment of its caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014. ISIS has executed thousands of civilians, including children, women, by shooting, beheading, stoning, throwing from high places and burning.
An anonymous postcard threat letter purportedly signed by ISIS and received at the State Secretariat in Goa last week has threatened to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.
