Why are Indian terrorists faking their deaths

New Delhi, May 27: The Intelligence Bureau has learnt that most of the operatives alleged to have joined the ISIS may have faked their death to reduce the heat on them.

The likes of Shafi Armar and his brother Sultan were proclaimed dead in air strikes at Syria. While the news emerged first out of Syria and the social media accounts of the ISIS, till date there has not been an independent confirmation of the same.

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Barring the glowing tributes on the social media, photographs of the the bodies of the deceased have never been put out on the social media. In both cases of Shafi and Sultan who are believed to be recruiting Indians into the ISIS, it was claimed that they were killed in an air strike.

No confirmation till date:

In the case of Sultan Armar it has been over an year since the news of his death was made public. The only source of confirmation were the tributes paid by his followers on the social media.

Moreover, there was also no confirmation from the US despite it being claimed that they had killed him in an air strike.

However, none of the social media accounts had any photographs of his dead body.
Further the Intelligence Bureau also states that Indians are not allowed into the battlefield in Syria and Iraq. Hence the question of them dying in an air strike is extremely rare.

Another reason to doubt the death of Armar is because there has been some chatter on the internet intercepted by the IB which suggests that he may just be alive.The case of his brother is no different.

There was a rumour on the internet regarding his death. However in his case there were no tributes paid by his supporters either. The IB says that they have not been able to ascertain whether he is dead or alive. However in the case of Shafi, the IB says that news of his death was just a rumour.

Why do they fake their death?

Officials say that they have noticed a trend in the case of several terrorists. When the heat on them is extremely high, they always end up faking their death. Riyaz Bhatkal of the Indian Mujahideen had done it several times. In the case of Hyderabad based operative Shahid Bilal too it was the same case initially.

This is normally done to avoid the heat. They feel that the Intelligence Agencies would take them off the radar if news of their death was spread around. This is a normal ploy by all of them.

However, the IB also adds that in many cases it is extremely difficult to confirm the news immediately. We usually do not take them off the radar.

Instead we wait and in most cases, these persons have have resurfaced with different names and handles on the net.

OneIndia News