Home Ministry to engage states to counter increasing appeal of IS among net-savvy Muslims

NEW DELHI: Signaling the clear and present danger posed by the appeal of terror outfits like the Islamic State ( IS) among India's net-savvy Muslims, the home ministry will engage a dozen states on Saturday to review the likely threat of their radicalization recruitment and draw up a cohesive national strategy to deal with the same.

The meeting comes after at least 10 states, including UP, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, submitted their assessments to the Centre on the likely challenges posed by IS as well as steps conceived or taken to counter these. Though the home ministry says nearly 11 Indians have joined IS, officials believe the global outfit may have caught the attention of many more, making them prone to radicalization and religious extremism.

Among the measures that will be discussed threadbare at the meeting chaired by Union home secretary L C Goyal and attended by state home secretaries and DGPs, are a community outreach plan to tackle the perception of alienation and victimhood among the minorities, monitoring of social media posts propagating the IS cause and ideology and counselling of vulnerable youth by community elders against taking to violent extremism. Interestingly , Maharashtra and Telangana have already put in place a model for dealing with ISIS-related cases.

Among the states to be represented at the meeting are Jammu & Kashmir, which has witnessed many instances of its youth waving ISIS flags; Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Assam, Punjab, West Bengal and Delhi.