Students from Gulf nations, Afghanistan in Noida, Ghaziabad institutes under scanner for IS links

MEERUT: Meerut divisional commissioner Alok Sinha on Sunday asked the district magistrates and senior superintendents of police of the six districts under the division to keep an eye on students from Gulf countries and Afghanistan who are studying at professional institutions in Noida, Ghaziabad and Meerut. According to Sinha, intelligence reports suggest that these students, as also Indian students, may be in touch with Islamic State terrorists. Sinha also asked officials to look out for the "newly rich" students, particularly those spending more than what their families earn.

"IS is recruiting educated young blood who are getting involved into anti-national activities through internet. In rural areas, the young generation easily gets involved into such activities due to religious frenzy," Sinha wrote in a letter to DMs and SSPs of Meerut, Bulandshahr, Baghpat, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hapur and Ghaziabad.

The commissioner asked officials to prepare a list of all the cyber cafes running in these districts and track suspicious people frequenting them.

Sinha told officials that non-traditional resources like personnel from revenue, forest and health departments can be useful for collecting important information and tracking activities of antisocial groups which are engaged in spreading communal hatred. He also asked DMs and SSPs to make sure that all the tenants living in these districts are verified by SHOs of the respective areas.

Notably, at a high-level meet of top administrative and police officials held in Lucknow on Tuesday, exchanging information with the Centre and other states and keeping track of the social media sites were some of the measures discussed to check the spread and influence of IS. "We have to be vigilant and alive to the IS issues," principal secretary, home, Debasish Panda had said after the meeting.

The Home department sources told TOI that the Centre had alerted UP early this month to take the IS threats seriously and foil any effort of some sleeper modules to mobilize the youths towards the ideology of the terror group.