NIA conducts series of raids in Kashmir, arrests six for ISIS conspiracy to ‘radicalise impressionable youth’

The Siraj-ul-Uloom seminary in Srinagar that was raided by the NIA on July 11.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted mutiple raids at various locations in Kashmir on July 11 and arrested six persons, including a chairman of an Islamic seminary, for their alleged role in a terrorism case.

The NIA said the terrorism case was registered on June 29 under the Unlawful Activities Preventiona Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code in connection with the “conspiracy of the ISIS [Islamic State] to radicalise and recruit impressionable youth in the country to wage violent jehad against the Indian state”.

The raids follow the Jammu and Kashmir administration’s decision to sack 11 of its employees, including two sons of Muhammad Yusuf Shah alias Syed Salahuddin, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief, on July 10 for their alleged participation in “anti-India activities”. The 11 employees were posted in the Jammu and Kashmir Police, Education, Agriculture, Skill Development, Power and Health Departments and the Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS).

According to media reports, the NIA teams, assisted by Jammu and Kashmir Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), raided the Siraj-ul-Uloom seminary in Srinagar’s Dalal Mohalla, Nawab Bazaar area, and seized some office records and a laptop and took its chairman Adnaan Ahmad Nadvi into custody.

Other raids were carried out at Pushroo, Sunsooma and Achabal villages of Anantnag. The NIA in a statement said the searches were conducted at seven locations in Anantnag and Srinagar districts in the “ISIS voice of Hind case” registered by it in New Delhi under sections 124A, 153A, and 153 B of IPC and sections 17, 18, 18B, 38, 39 and 40 of UA(P) Act 1967.

“In order to execute its nefarious plan, an organised campaign has been launched over the cyber space which is supplemented by on ground [militant] financing activities,” the NIA statement said.

The statement said: “ISIS operating from various conflict zones along with ISIS cadres in India, by assuming pseudo-online identities, have created a network wherein ISIS related propaganda material is disseminated for radicalising and recruiting members to the fold of ISIS.”

It further added: “In this connection an India-centric online propaganda magazine ‘the Voice of Hind’ (VOH) is published on monthly basis with an aim to incite and radicalise impressionable youth by projecting a skewed narrative of imagined injustices in India to arouse a feeling of alienation and communal hatred.”