In order to keep a tab on the increasing menace of radicalisation of youth by terrorist organisations through social media and other online platforms, National Investigation Agency (NIA) has formed a special cell.

According to a report published in a leading daily, the special cell is equipped with state of the art software tools to single out conversations in online chatter, which may be specially significant from terrorism or radicalisation point of view. Until now, only intelligence agencies like the Research and Analysis Wing (RA&W) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) were in possession of such tool. But now NIA is also armed with similar surveillance software. It has been a long standing demand of the agency to cultivate its own intelligence capabilities so that it can generate information regarding its ongoing investigations.

A group of Indians left to fight for ISIS after getting radicalised through social media. One of the most vocal proponents of ISIS in the digital space, Shami Witness was found out to be a guy working in a software company in Bengaluru. Earlier too there have been several instances where Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba have used the internet to attract youth cadres in their ranks. Thus, NIA is looking to keep a tab on such conversations but in the process personal privacy will unfortunately be a cruel martyr.

According to NIA officials, terrorists have long changed their modus operandi. They no longer operate using phones and are often taking recourse in online mediums to pass on their information. Hence, NIA is looking to up the ante so that they can beat terrorists at their own game. However, terrorists are also no longer merely using plain messages. Often highly encrypted messages are passed, cryptic codes exchanged. So analysing the data to reach to the proper conclusion is the most key element. It is like obtaining a needle from a haystack and NIA is hoping that it will be able to get lucky on occasions to aid their investigations.