Amid reports that more than 15 young men from Maharashtra have gone to Iraq to join ‘jihad’, the Maharashtra government has decided to block video/audio content on social networking sites uploaded by the ISIS to spread radicalism.
The Maharashtra government is in touch with the central government over the disappearance of youth who are suspected to have joined ISIS jihadis in Iraq.
The state police have already shared its information and available intelligence on the sensitive issue with the central agencies.
Police and state intelligence sources said that the youth were reportedly part of a group of pilgrims which left Mumbai for Baghdad on May 23.
The state government’s move came after reports claimed that hundreds of Indian Muslim youth, mostly from poor and vulnerable backgrounds, are lining up for visas at the embassies of some of the Gulf and Middle East nations with the aim of joining the ‘jihad’ in Iraq.
Police and intelligence agencies suspect that the men may have been enticed online, through one of the Internet or some chatrooms where lot of propaganda material has been uploaded on the recent developments in Iraq.
Iraq alone has had to deal with nearly 2,000 applications from highly charged Muslim youth from all over the country, particularly Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
