Feminine charm, youthful freshness, computer skills, and complete commitment. This deadly cocktail is the new face of terror.
Members of Shaheen are young educated girls, adept at use of computers
LUCKNOW: Feminine charm, youthful freshness, computer skills, and complete commitment. This deadly cocktail is the new face of terror.
Senior central intelligence officials and police officers of many states are watching with anxiety the female face of home-grown terror. Detailed questioning of the SIMI leaders arrested in Indore over the past few days is giving officials the first glimpse of ‘Shaheen’, the women’s wing of SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India).
Senior officials say the SIMI faction led by Safdar Nagori, which preaches violent retribution against the Indian state, has been “very effectively” using the women’s wing of SIMI, especially young, educated girls, for a host of activities including as couriers and messengers. And the active members of Shaheen have been recruiting many more young Muslim girls into the fringes of the world of jehad.
According to officials privy to the interrogation of those arrested in Indore, among the states where ‘Shaheen’ is active are Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
According to sources in UP, SIMI already has a network of about 200 femmes fatale in UP. “That is a conservative estimate. The numbers are growing. We have definite information that active ‘Shaheen’ members are recruiting young girls in the name of Islam,” said a senior police official.
The female face of terror and the complex challenges possed by it was discussed at an emergency meeting of the Union Home Ministry in Delhi on Thursday last. Top officials from several terror-hit states participated. They were taking stock of the Indore arrests-which unraveled the most potent home-grown terror network of India.
It was in Karnataka in January that the first glimpse of SIMI’s Nagori faction emerg-ed, with the accidental arrest of two youth in Davangere. From then on the intelligence agencies and state polices have been unravelling a vast network of this SIMI faction, with Madhya Pradesh as the nerve centre. The group had been planning to carry out attacks in Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh among others, using locally available explosives such as hydrogen peroxide.
As investigators began interrogating those arrested in Indore the suspects admitted to something unexpected: How they were using the ‘Shaheen’ network of women across India.
Officials here are tight-lipped about the new threat and the strategy being planned to combat it.
But sources in the UP police department told DNA that the operation to stop the spread of ‘Shaheen’ had already begun in about half-a-dozen districts known to have been used by SIMI as its base between 1992 and 2001. These include Lucknow, Kanpur, Azamgarh, Aligarh, Saharanpur, and Meerut.
‘Shaheen’ was originally floated by SIMI as an outfit to keep Muslim children away from modern-day vices and the influence of western culture, and groom them in keeping with Islamic culture and religion. However, after being forced to go underground due to police operations, the SIMI leadership decided to use ‘Shaheen’ as a potent weapon in their destructive designs.
Sources said SIMI operatives arrested in MP had revealed during their interrogation that the outfit was changing its modus operandi to avoid detection. The most alarming among these is the use of young girls, good-looking and adept at computers, for the Islamist cause.
“These recruits can prove to be the deadliest weapon if they are used as fidayeen (suicide bombers),” a senior police official involved in ‘Operation Shaheen’ said. However, he said, as per the initial intelligence, the girls are to be used only for support and back-up while the actual field operations would be conducted by SIMI activists.
The MP police are in constant touch with the police forces of several states, and the Intelligence Bureau’s national network is also actively combing to further unravel and understand Shaheen.
An intelligence source told DNA that the MP Police have sent an alert for two hardcore SIMI activists Mahfooz and Mohd. Ashfaq, who may have escaped from MP into UP recently.
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