From ‘Babyboy to Snickers,’ here are the handles used by ISIS to radicalise Indian Muslims
New Delhi, May 07: The tacking of the online activity of the Islamic State has been one of the most important jobs for an Intelligence Bureau (IB) official. It is there where the radicalisation takes place and in almost all cases it has been found that a person has joined the Islamic State after being contacted by a handler online.
The Indian agencies tracking the ISIS say that most notorious handle used online is Yusuf al Hindi.
This handle was first created by Sultan Armar, who quit the Indian Mujahideen to join the ISIS.
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After his death, the handle was operated by his brother Shafi Armar. Through this handle, he managed to rope in several Indian Muslims. While there is no confirmation, there are several reports that suggest that Shafi Armar too had died. However the handle continues to be operated even today.
In order to track the Islamic State's online activities, the Indian agencies had in 2014 introduced 'Operation Chakravyuh.' The officials created fake IDs and tracked down Islamic State operatives operating on the cyber space.
During the operation, the agencies stumbled upon various handles being used by ISIS operatives. It was found that most of the handles were directly targeting Kerala and other parts of Southern India.
One such handle was Gold Dinar. This the agencies learnt was being operated by Abdul Rashid Abdullah, who name has cropped up several times in the ISIS Kerala case. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said that he is the main accused and was responsible for large scale radicalisation in Kerala.
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The other handles that the agencies learnt about are Snickers021 and Babyboy. It was found that these handles were being used by one Ashfaq Majeed, also part of the Kerala module.