Arrested teacher who recruited Bengal girl into Lashkar planned violent jihad in India

New Delhi, Apr 16: The National Investigation Agency has arrested a recruiter belonging to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.

The case relates to the arrest of one Tania Mondal by the West Bengal police for her association with the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. The arrested person, Altaf Ahmed Rather, a school teacher from Bandipora was a sympathiser of the outfit.

He was also in regular touch with Tania through the social media. He was instrumental in introducing Tania to the members of the outfit based in Pakistan.

The NIA said that the motive was to radicalise, recruit and motivate the youth to undertake violent jihad in India.

Tania Mondal a.k.a Tania Parveen was part of 70 Jihadi groups on the social media. Tania, a resident of District North 24 Parganas, West Bengal had converted to Islam after being radicalised. She was arrested by the West Bengal police, following which the NIA took over the investigation.

She was a college student and got radicalised in the cyberspace by Pakistan based cadres of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.

Tania, gradually became part of about 70 jihadi groups on social media, which propagated terrorist ideology advocating skewed version of Islamic Jihad with an aim to further radicalise and recruit impressionable Muslim youth, the NIA said in its chargesheet.

The accused was also active in various Palestinian and Syrian Jihadi social media groups. Investigation further revealed that the LeT cadres based in Lahore, Pakistan had introduced the accused to the officials of Pak Intelligence Agency, ISI, who tasked her to open fake Facebook profile and befriend Armed Force members in India to obtain sensitive strategic information.

NIA officials said that she was using a WhatsApp number of Pakistan. She was also part of several groups and had many accounts on social media sites.

The police said that she was trying to honey trap Indian soldiers in lieu of information about the Indian Army. The investigation conducted by the police managed to establish her direct connection with the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. She was using the dark web to interact with the soldiers.

She is a first year student of masters' degree and she was arrested on March 17 from her house at the Malayapur village, which is on the Bangladesh border.

The police found that she was in the process of befriending Indian soldiers. She was trying to honey trap them. However, she had not succeeded.