The Shiv Sena Tuesday expressed concern over what it described as “home-grown terror being exported” to Iraq, which could pose serious ramifications for India.
In an editorial in its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, the party said that the incident of four missing youths from Kalyan town in Thane, who have reportedly joined the ISIS jihad in Iraq, is a warning bell which India must heed.
The Shiv Sena feels that “until now terror was being imported into India by organisations like al Qaeda, Indian Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba and HuJI. But, this is a new trend in which home-grown terror is being exported,” said the editorial.
“Does India have any action plan to deal with such jihadi forces? Unless we control Islamic extremism, this jihadi explosive could soon prove to be suicidal,” the editorial warned.
Noting how highly educated youths from middle-class families are being attracted to organisations like Indian Mujahiddeen or ISIS, the Shiv Sena said this trend itself needs to be studied carefully.
“Until now, terror was being imported into India from different countries, but now we are witnessing this new development — The Indian intelligence agencies believe that internet medium could have been used to indoctrinate these youth,” the editorial noted.
The editorial comes in the wake of the Maharashtra government taking help from the central government to trace out four youths from Kalyan, who were reported ‘missing’ by their families late May and are believed to have joined a jihadi group in Iraq.
Additional Commissioner of Police Sharad Shelar, Kalyan, said Monday that the complaints were registered May 25, 26 and 27, and the probe is on.
However, despite all efforts, there has been no breakthrough so far, and it is also not clear whether the four were known to one another, police said.
The missing youths are Arif Fayyaz Majeed, Aman Naik Tandel, Shaheed Farooqui Tanki and Fahad Tanvir Sheikh.
The police and intelligence agencies suspect that the youths may have been indoctrinated online, through some chatrooms where lot of propaganda material has been uploaded on the recent developments in Iraq.
