To monitor ISIS, Kerala will have a special cell

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 18: The Kerala police will form a special cell to monitor ISIS related activity on the internet. The cell will comprise a dedicated team of officials who would monitor the internet for jihadi content.

Over the past year, there have been various instances to show that youth from Kerala are leaning towards the ideology of the ISIS.

With the influence of the Wahabi preachers highest in this state, Kerala finds the need to form a special unit to monitor jihadi related activity, sources informed OneIndia.

The need for a special cell:

The Kerala police feel that there is a need for a dedicated cell to monitor the internet and the social media sites in particular. Only recently several youth were deported from the UAE to Kerala after their links with the ISIS surfaced.

The special team would profile the suspects and keep close tabs on them. The police had only recently found a Whatsapp group that was created to propagate on behalf of the ISIS.

The group was busted after one of the members who had received the message by mistake decided to inform the police about it. The new cell will be part of the intelligence bureau (IB).

However, since the IB has other tasks too to carry out, this special cell would deal exclusively with the internet and monitor it for jihadi content.

The job of the special cell would also include tracking some of the youth who have gone missing from the state in the past few months.

Some from the state have gone off the radar. There are others who have taken up jobs abroad and have gone missing. The new cell would try and track down these persons.

In Kerala there has been a great deal of interest generated for the ISIS. Propaganda material ranging from literature to videos have been circulated in large number.

Many from the state of Kerala have been circulating such material and hence setting up the special cell to nab such persons becomes important, an officer informed.

OneIndia News