Kerala Muslims find Islamic State most attractive in India says a Pakistan study

New Delhi, Oct 22: In an already crowded terror market, India has another headache to deal with. The outfit that is threatening the country this time is the Wilayat-e-Hind (WeH).

The WeH is an offshoot of the Islamic State and is currently active in South Asia. The outfit over the past couple of weeks has attracted several educated Muslim youth in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The Intelligence agencies say that this outfit has not only been radicalising the youth in India, but has also moved several of its fighters from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan. The ISIS has been facing heavy losses in Syria and Iraq and hence decided to make it Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh wing stronger.

The motive:

In the many recruitment drives that the WeI has conducted, a similar modus operandi that the other groups have relied upon has been used. The outfit speaks about the governments of India and Bangladesh and how an un-islamic rule is in place.

Further it accuses the government of carrying out state-sponsored terrorism against the Muslim community.

A study in this regard titled 'Prospects of Daesh's Expansion in South Asia," says that an unorganised presence of WeH terrorists has been identified in parts of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. It operates as an Indian chapter of the Islamic State which was formally announced in 2016.

The new research was conducted by Abdullah Khan, the managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. The study also says that WeH is the new chapter of the Daesh which is quickly attracting educated youth in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

An interesting highlight of the study relates to Kerala. It says the Indian citizens, especially from Kerala find the Islamic State more attractive than another group. This observation comes in the wake of 54 people from Kerala joining the ISIS in the past three years.

Further it states that those who have joined the Wilayat are educated and most of them are engineers, doctors and MBA holders. Most of them are joining the group's Khorasan chapter (Afghanistan) than the core group in Syria or Iraq.