Flashback 2014: ISIS, Naxals kept MHA busy

New Delhi, Dec 25: Terror outfit ISIS appeared to have emerged as a threat factor in the Indian security radar during 2014 which wrapped up on a tragic note with massacre of over 60 Adivasi by Bodo rebels in Assam after witnessing unabated Naxal violence.

However, there was considerable calm in Jammu and Kashmir, which witnessed a record turn out in the just-concluded largely peaceful Assembly polls during the year in which over 560 incidents of communal violence came as a matter of concern.

With the new government in saddle in Delhi and new minister Rajnath Singh in North Block, some occupants in Raj Bhavans nominated by the earlier UPA government, were nudged out and new ones appointed in their place.

However, a few incumbents continued. The long struggle for separate statehood in Andhra Pradesh culminated in the creation of Telangana in June that become the country's 29th state.

The arrest of a Bangalore-based executive, who was operating a pro-ISIS Twitter handle to propagate the ideology of the Middle-East terrorist group, climaxed some disquieting events earlier in the year.

The disappearance of four Mumbai youths in Iraq-Syria and return of one of them raised concerns over how some of the Indian Muslim youths have become radicalised through social networking sites and other cyber outlets.

Intelligence Bureau chief Asif Ibrahim recently said there was an imminent danger of Indian youths moving to the conflict zone (Iraq-Syria), emerging as a role model and such developments may directly or indirectly pose a threat to the country.

"The threat potential is accentuated with some lower rung elements returning from conflict zone," he had said. The Indian hinterland continues to remain the prime focus of Pakistan-based terrorist outfits, particularly the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Indian Mujahideen, as the Home Ministry found that these groups were setting up their infrastructure in Bangladesh and using the porous Indo-Bangla border to send arms and ammunition into India.

Blast in a madrassa in West Bengal's Burdwan has pointed out designs of the terrorists of the neighbouring country to set up bases in India.

PTI