'Stay back home and fight’: Islamic State shifts strategy from foreign recruitments to homegrown radicalisation

On the face of it for the agencies tracking such lectures, it appears to be just religious study. When they go deep into these events, it becomes evident that these are indoctrination classes during which the participants are prepared to propagate violent Jihad in India.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had reported that around 155 cases were linked to the Islamic State.

The US Department of State estimated that 66 Indian origin fighters were associated with the terror outfit. Of these 21 alone were from Kerala.

These persons had left Kerala to join the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan.

Officials say that the number would have been way higher, but the Indian agencies carried out ‘Operation Chakravyuh’ by which scores of youth were tracked online and stopped from leaving the country.

While the agencies managed to stem to outflow into the Islamic State, the new scenario is a worrying one and the modus operandi has shifted from leave home to stay at home and propagate violent Jihad, an official noted.