Of 13 Indians, six fighting for Islamic State killed

NEW DELHI: Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka account for more than half of the 13 Indian recruits picked up by IS so far, even as six of them chose to join the outfit from foreign shores.

As of now, only seven Indians are part of the IS, while six recruits have been killed. Of the seven youths operating in IS territory, two hail from Maharashtra, one each from Telangana and Karnataka (Bengaluru), while three have travelled to Iraq and Syria from overseas destinations such as Australia (originally from Kashmir), Oman and Singapore.

Only one of the seven Indians serving with IS is handling a fighting assignment (believed to be one of the four youths who travelled from Kalyan in Mumbai), while the remaining six are doing odd jobs for the outfit, a home ministry official claimed on Monday .

As for the six Indians already killed in the IS "warzone", while two were from Maharashtra and one from Telangana, three others were Indian Mujahideen terrorists whose last known location was in Pakistan. Two of these suspected IM exports from Pakistan are Bada Sajid and Sultan Ajmer Shah.

In addition, nearly 17 young Muslims from Telangana were prevented from joining the IS. An intervention by the Maharashtra government too is believed to have dissuaded 7 persons from being drawn into IS.

At the meeting on Saturday convened by Union home secretary L C Goyal to assess the IS threat along with 12 states and draw up a cohesive counter-action plan, Telangana was appreciated for its efforts and strategies to check radicalization and address the issue through involvement of families of vulnerable youths, community elders, NGOs and "moderate" schools of Islam.

Interestingly, though NTRO found UP to have returned the highest internet image searches related to IS, the state chief secretaryDGP did not report much impact of the outfit.