
When Saifuddin (name changed), a 26-year-old MBA from Hyderabad, decided to leave his heavily pregnant wife to join the ISIS in Syria, he had no idea that the intelligence agencies were tracking his every move.

To do khidmat (service) and be part of the ISIS or the Islamic State, Saifuddin, like many other Indian Muslims, had been interacting with handlers on the social media and gradually getting lured to the idea of attaining jannat (heaven) by serving the Sunni terror group that has massacred thousands in order to set up a Caliphate.

Today, bringing up his daughter is his life’s sole mission.

A fighter holds an ISIS flag in Mosul. In the past year, security agencies have stopped over 25 Indian recruits from leaving India to join ISIS in Syria

“After watching ISIS videos and interacting with radicals, I wanted to go to Syria. Now I realise I was walking into a death trap,” says Saifuddin.

This is the first time that Saifuddin has broken his silence before the media after being stopped by the Indian security agencies from travelling to Syria.

He, like over 20 recruits, including 17 from Telangana and at least four from Maharashtra, has not been arrested or charged with any offence, as part of a new strategy adopted to de-radicalise them and bring them back into the mainstream.

This marks a tectonic shift from the way the agencies have handled terror recruits in the past. However, the agencies still feel the need to closely monitor their activities.

Hesitant initially to talk about his flirtations with terror, Saifuddin finally opens up when assured that his identity will not be revealed. His eyes turn misty as he tells us about his new-born daughter. He says he is grateful to the almighty that he was intercepted before he could take off for Syria.

“I get nightmares thinking about those days now. I wonder what my daughter, my wife and family would have gone through if I had succeeded in joining the ISIS. It gives me the jitters,” he adds.

He says he did not want to fight for the Islamic State but wanted to serve the people of conflict-hit Syria.

Saifuddin says he got in touch with someone called Mohammed-Ibn-Al Bara, who claimed to be a Syria-born Australian citizen carrying out aid work in conflict-hit Syria.

“He convinced to me join as a volunteer and I was told to reach Turkey and then cross over to Syria.”

Saifuddin aborted his plan after policemen knocked on his door in August last year, a week before he was to leave for Turkey after getting a visa. He has now gone back to a normal life and is working independently as a foreign exchange trader.

Above: A file photograph shows ISIS fighters burning piles of cigarettes in territory they have captured. (Below): Members wave the ISIS flag in Raqqa, Syria.

But four other youngsters, all in their early 20s, did not give up so easily. Like Saifuddin, these four were trying to obtain Turkish visas and were being tracked by intelligence agencies. Their visas got cancelled - but they had a Plan B ready. They decided to reach Kolkata, from where they were to illegally cross over to Bangladesh where a handler promised to facilitate their travel to Turkey.

While speaking to Mail Today, these four revealed only their codenames - Musaib, Saad, Ussein and Ayaan - to hide their true identities.

They said they had travelled from Karimnagar to Kolkata by train last August. It was the ringtone on Musaib’s phone that caught Saifuddin’s attention and got them together. The ring tone was an ISIS song.

The two men were at a mosque offering namaz when Musaib’s phone rang. Upon hearing the ringtone, Saifuddin knew they had a common mission. After that, they were in constant touch.

While Saifuddin got de-radicalised soon after policemen came to his house, the Bangladesh plan of Musaib and the three others got scuttled as a Telangana police team tracked them down in Kolkata, where they were staying at a lodge near New Market.

Recalling the episode, Musaib says the moment he saw a man with a moustache in the hotel where they were staying he knew the game was over.

“He had a typical Telugu look,” he says referring to the intelligence branch inspector of Telangana police. “That’s when I told my friends it’s all over.”

Life changed for 21-year-old Musaib, who was in his third year of a computer engineering degree course at that time. When word spread of his attempt to join the ISIS, he was asked to leave college. He is now pursuing a course in interior designing and trying to pick up the nuances of the furniture business run by his family.

His sister, also in her twenties, had wanted to accompany him to Syria. Musaib says they were given a contact in Bangladesh by their handlers who used to communicate with them through Skype and telegram.

“I was never very serious about religion,” he says with a smile, adding that he got carried away after watching videos of atrocities against Muslims on the internet.

“I got inspired by the idea of Jihad after watching these videos. Soon I was in touch with people on Facebook who were directing me how to reach Syria,” he said.

Another youth from Hyderabad who wanted to join the ISIS says that when he was intercepted by the police he thought he would spend the rest of his life in jail. But the way the police treated him has inspired him to join them.

“We feel they have been de-radicalised but we still have to keep a close watch on them,” said an intelligence official who was part of the operation that prevented these young men from leaving the country.

The battle to bring radicalised young men back to the mainstream is a long one, he adds.

Counselling, not arrests, is Centre's way forward

By Abhishek Bhalla in Hyderabad

De-radicalisation of the youth swayed by the idea of jihad is the way forward to combat the ISIS threat in India.

The Centre, along with various state governments, has formulated a framework as part of the strategy to neutralise the ISIS ideology that has appealed to thousands around the world.

Over the last year, more than 25 youngsters have been identified as those who were inspired by the idea of ISIS and wanted to join it.

In Telangana, 17 youth have been prevented from travelling to Syria - and recently, four from Maharashtra were also intercepted.

Unlike in the past, where these youngsters would be arrested, the police did not charge them with any offence. They went through counselling sessions and are living normal lives, while they still remain under some scrutiny.

While some who crossed a certain threshold have been arrested, in most cases, no arrests were made.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), after deliberations with the state government and agencies like the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), has formulated this strategy of not going for knee-jerk arrests in cases of Indian youth getting attracted by the ISIS.

“We are aware of the challenges and a response system has been put in place. We cannot afford to remain oblivious and there is scope to fine-tune all aspects through a multi-pronged strategy where the Centre and the states will work together,” a top MHA official said.

The MHA has called a high-level meeting, expected in the first week of August, with representatives of state governments to further strengthen the mechanism.

Home Secretary LC Goyal will chair the meeting, which will be attended by senior officials of states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Assam to deliberate the strategy further.

States like Maharashtra and Telangana have already set a model to deal with the ISIS-related cases. While there have been some arrests in some cases, arrest seems to be the last option in others.

Sources say the suspects are being kept under a watch and if they seem to go beyond a limit, they are being stopped as was done in Telangana and Maharashtra.

“There is a lot of effort directed towards de-radicalisation. We are sensitising our officials to distinguish between a religious person and a radical individual. We are trying to engage with community leaders and ensure that extremism can be combated before it turns into terrorism,” Vivek Phansalkar, Additional Director General, Maharashtra Anti Terror Squad, told Mail Today.

An intelligence official, part of the operations to prevent the ISIS-attracted youth from going to Syria, said that if they were arrested they surely would turn into terrorists.

“Jails are a breeding ground for all levels of criminals. Counter-radicalisation is the only way forward,” he said.

Sources said there are around 70-75 people across the country currently, who are under watch for ISIS-related activities. Officials dealing with intelligence gathering at the ground level feel the estimate of the problem has still not been assessed properly.

While closer monitoring of social media has begun, there is a need to win over the confidence of the Muslim community and the police should not be looked as agents of the government.