As the Yogi Adityanath government aims to shore up Uttar Pradesh’s law-and-order situation, the state police are clamping down on self-radicalised youth influenced by ideologies of groups such as Islamic State, HuJi and SIMI in several districts.
Illegal immigrants — who are out to strike fear among the residents with their recent involvement in a spate of heinous crimes — are also on state police radar along with hardcore criminals still at large, UP’s top police officer told MAIL TODAY in an exclusive interview in Lucknow.
‘We are keeping a close tab on self-radicalised youth and their activities. We have arrested about 18-20 people in recent months and some are under close watch.
Anand Kumar, Uttar Pradesh’s top police officer, links ISIS recruitment with the city’s rising crime statistics: ‘We’re trying to assess the growth of such radicalised groups and their influence on youth and others in the state’
All these youth and their groups are influenced by the ideologies of terror outfits like Islamic State, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), SIMI and HuJi of Bangladesh. Of late, Kerala- based PFI was on our radar and their monitoring has increased with their involvement in ‘anti-national propaganda’ on December 6.
‘We’re trying to assess the growth of such radicalised groups and their influence on youth and others in the state,’ said Anand Kumar, UP’s additional director general of police (law and order).
While Kumar did not divulge details about the extent to which such terror groups’ influence the locals and the possible threats they have posed as per intelligence inputs, but sources within the state police headquarters told MAIL TODAY: ‘There are specific alerts and in recent times, nearly 14-15 terror modules have been busted.’
Requesting anonymity, some also gave vital leads to why UP Police are on their toes against terror groups operating from the state.
‘Starting from Azamgarh as the nerve centre for such terror ideologies threatening to influence minority-community youth to various pockets of western UP – Shamli, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Aligarh and Moradabad — UP Police have zeroed-in on Bijnore for strong SIMI links with locals,’ a source at UP Police Headquarters said to Mail Today.
The most significant catch recently has been Nayeem, an LeT operative and a science student, who was found living in a Hindu household in Varanasi on rent.
His interrogation revealed his close recee of Israeli cafes and Ganga ghats in Varanasi, where a lot of foreigners come. ‘His mobile phone had pictures of Israeli cafes and his prime targets were Americans and Israelis,’ said a senior police officer.
Kumar told MAIL TODAY that apart from these ideologies threatening to influence local Muslim youth, a big challenge is ‘tracking and dealing with illegal immigrants’.
‘There are thousands of them and some of them are not only in heinous crimes like dacoity and murders, but involvement of Bangladeshis have also been established in western UP in fanning communal propaganda, including anti-national sentiments.
‘We found a lot of incriminating documents, including anti-India pamphlets, bomb-making techniques and false Aadhaar cards in possession of some Bangladeshis arrested in alleged crime activities,’ Kumar said.
The UP top cop hints that illegal immigrants are going to pose a major threat and state police are up against a major challenge.
Uttar Pradesh police are attempting to stop terror groups from recruiting disaffected youth in the state, which is struggling under the weight of a lack of law-and-order
‘Be it Bangladeshis or Rohingyas, the problem is threefold. They have either got documents through fake identities; staying without any valid documents or have managed ‘genuine’ documents through fraud and deceitful means.
Thousands of such Bangladeshis are staying in UP illegally and their crime influence is affecting cities like Lucknow to Noida to Sultanpur to Muzaffarnagar. Also, there are at least 250 Rohingyas in Aligarh and we are not sure about their resident status,’ Kumarcontinued.
Police are gearing up to meet the terror- linked challenges as it launched the crackdown on hardcore criminals.
‘Nearly 3,100 criminals, which include both rewarded and wanted, have been arrested by the state police in major offensive launched against hardened criminals since March 20.
‘Properties worth thousands of crores have been seized in recent police action and we’re collecting information about the remaining 800- odd criminals still at large from law,’ Kumar signed off.