SRINAGAR: Pakistanintelligence agency and terrorist groups now they are carrying out the recruitment in Jammu and cashmere Using applications in cyber and mobile space as direct physical interactions has become difficult due to the hawk-eyed vigil of security forces, authorities said Sunday.
Pakistan’s ISI officials often use fake videos of alleged atrocities committed by security forces and construct a false narrative to stir emotions among new recruits, they said, citing intelligence reports and technical surveillance.
Previously, terrorist sympathizers used to make physical contact with potential recruits to incorporate them into the ranks and archives of a terrorist group. However, after the security agencies cracked down on such sympathizers, they changed their modus operandi.
In 2020, security agencies destroyed more than two dozen terrorist modules, leading to the arrest of more than 40 sympathizers.
Two surrendered terrorists, Tawar Waghey and Amir Ahmed Mir, who laid down their arms to the Army’s 34 Rashtriya rifles late last month, gave a glimpse of their joining the terror modules that showed that cyber recruitment was taking place. big scale. .
Both terrorists had come into contact with a Pakistan-based manipulator through Facebook who indoctrinated them before handing them over to a recruiter named Khalid and Mohammed Abbas Sheikh.
The two terrorists received online training using various links available on public platforms such as YouTube and both had met their local contact only once at Shopian in southern Kashmir, officials said.
This, according to officials, is done to prevent exposure of the sleeper cells created by Pakistan’s ISI within the valley. Security agencies have destroyed several modules following intelligence inputs provided by local residents.
The two terrorists, after being recruited into the Resistance Front (TRF), believed to be a shadow team of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, were receiving religious orders and teachings from Burhan Hamza, based in Pakistan.
Officials said there were around 40 such cases where recruitment was conducted and indoctrination was carried out via social media, especially in southern Kashmir. The new recruits awaited orders from across the border.
Terrorist groups are definitely facing a shortage of weapons and that is one reason why Pakistan-based terror groups are more focused on sending more weapons and less manpower, officials said.
They gave an example from last month’s encounter on the outskirts of the city of Jammu, where a group of four terrorists heading into the valley carried 11 assault rifles and a large quantity of ammunition.
The death of a 22-year-old local terrorist, Amir Siraj, in northern Kashmir late last month was yet another case of cyber recruitment, authorities said.
A graduating senior from Khawaja Gilgat in Sopore, Siraj was staying with his maternal uncle in Adipora in northern Kashmir and spending most of his afternoons playing soccer on the local field.
He disappeared on the afternoon of June 24, 2020. It was later discovered that he had been recruited by the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group from across the border via social media, officials said.
The local terrorist had expressed a desire to surrender, but his accomplice threatened that he and his family would be killed if he acted accordingly, they said.
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