http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/government-plans-social-media-scanning-centre-to-take-on-isis/1/554878.htmlWith ISIS trying to lure young Indian Muslim men into its fold by spreading propaganda material in Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Urdu on cyber space, the Indian government is all set to create a war room to monitor social media. The plan is to set up a 24/7 monitoring centre.
Abhishek Bhalla , New Delhi, December 24, 2015 |
With ISIS trying to lure young Indian Muslim men into its fold by spreading propaganda material in Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Urdu on cyber space, the Indian government is all set to create a war room to monitor social media. The plan is to set up a 24/7 monitoring centre.
Intelligence inputs indicate that the increasing use of Indian languages to spread the message of ISIS is an alarming trend that suggests that the terror outfit sees potential recruits from across the country. Other than English and Hindi, several regional languages are also being used to put out pro-ISIS material. In the past, Bangla has also been used to spread ISIS' hate propaganda targeting vulnerable youths in Bangladesh and India.
To combat the threat in cyber space the government set up a committee on December 15, 2015 to examine the feasibility of setting up a multi-agency 24x7 social media analysis centre and to prepare a blue print for the creation of a 'Situation Room' to analyse social media.
The committee is headed by Ashok Prasad, Secretary of Internal Security in the Home Ministry and has members from the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Information Technology and central intelligence agencies, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, stated in a written reply to a parliament question on Wednesday.
Mail Today had first reported in August that the government was planning an inter-ministerial body dedicated to the scrutiny of social media.
Indian youths who have already joined ISIS, or aspire to, are all attracted to the jihadi group's ideology that was put up on the internet. "ISIS handlers get in touch with potential recruits on social media. The vulnerable ones get radicalised after interacting with ISIS members, handlers online and then they are given further instructions on how to join the outfit," said an intelligence official.
According to intelligence reports, till now 23 Indians who joined ISIS have been accounted for and several others were intercepted before they could leave the country to join the group in Syria. While six are reportedly dead and two have returned, 15 Indians are still part of ISIS. Many of them are also in touch with Indian handlers who are recruiting for ISIS. "Some of these handlers were active within the country and some are in the Gulf," said an intelligence official.
Recent intelligence inputs have indicated that the Indians who are still in the ISIS war zone want to return home fearing for their lives. The terror threat on social media is not restricted to ISIS but also cover the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
The arrest of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the Bengaluru-based executive, for allegedly putting out material favouring ISIS last year, had alerted intelligence agencies about the mounting threat on cyber space. Social domains have gradually become the new recruiting grounds for terror groups. Since then several youths, who were recruited online and wanted to join ISIS, have been intercepted.
Sources say there are close to 30,000 Twitter handles, users on social media forums and websites that are spewing venom and little can be done to monitor them all and act in time.It's not just pro-terror group propaganda but also reactions to volatile developments within the country that have the potential to disrupt public order and communal harmony. Recently there have been communal clashes after hate content was put out on social media. Sources said it has been noticed that public rage on social media has led to protests leading to law and order problems.
Sources add that while certain websites were banned for hate mongering the government is making efforts to ensure hate content is also removed from platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
The action was promoted after an assessment was done by agencies monitoring the online content that discovered several websites and social media forums being widely used as a tool for creating communal flare-ups.
Officials of Ministries of Home and Telecommunication and agencies like Intelligence Bureau (IB), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) and Computer Emergency Response Emergency Team-India (CERTIn) are deliberating on immediate measures to combat the growing use of the cyber space for spreading communal hatred.
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