Another Success, Another Warning
The identification and neutralization of a terrorist module purportedly 'inspired' by the Islamic State (aka Daesh) by the Maharashtra Anti-terrorism Squad (ATS) reinforces trends already noted, first, that investigative and enforcement agencies continue to discover these cells well before their conspiracies reach fruition; second, that their 'association' with Daesh is, at worst, marginal, and these are overwhelmingly cases of 'rebranding' of existing elements radicalized by other local organisations or affiliations; third, that, while the overall threat of Islamist extremist terrorism is progressively declining, fringe elements remain susceptible to mobilisation; and fourth, the capabilities of various incipient groups are fairly rudimentary at the time when they are brought under surveillance, indicating, both, excellent intelligence penetration and also a significant level of cooperation from within the Muslim community.
The arrest of 9 members of the self-styled Ummat-e-Mohammadiya by the ATS Maharashtra from Thane and Aurangabad on January 21-22, 2019 (somewhat like the earlier Harkat-ul-Harb-e-Islam, which was neutralized by the National Investigation Agency) nevertheless, exposes important areas of concern. The most significant of these is the shift away from the conventional instruments of terrorism - the bomb and the bullet - towards unconventional (though not novel) methods: the possibility of poisoning food and water sources at major (potentially religious) gatherings. As more conspiracies are discovered and scotched, aspiring terrorists are likely to explore a widening range of tactics and strategies, and there is urgent need to guard against these possibilities. This will require both great vigilance and imagination on the part of security and intelligence agencies. While such conspiracies have, happily, been discovered in their early stages over the recent past, their possible materialization at some time in the future also points to the need for far more efficient and wider infrastructure protection than is currently visible. That said, it would be far from simple even presently to access major water-supply infrastructure or food sources to effectively poison large resources, particularly at scales or for targets that would have extraordinary potential to provoke significant communal violence or a deepening of communal fissures - the likely objectives of such a plot.
Further, each recent arrest of Islamist terrorists has been accompanied by strident assertions in the media of Daesh linkages, though little evidence, beyond the alleged access by the accused to Daesh sites on the internet, has been cited to support this claim (there is no reason to believe that such accused did not access other radical Islamist websites as well, to which no affiliation is similarly attributed). It is necessary to underline the dangers of sensationalism in this context, and to reiterate that the incidence of Daesh-linked mobilisation in India has been minuscule, particularly in view of the often hysterical assessments voiced by ideology-led 'experts' over the years since the group first published its map of its projected 'Khorasan Wilayat' to include India, and declared this country a target of its jihad. Specifically, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database, a total of 164 Daesh sympathizers/recruits have been arrested and another 69 persons have been detained, counseled and released, in India (data till January 23, 2019). Another 98 Indians were believed to have travelled to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to join IS, of whom 32 have been killed - microscopic numbers in terms of the country's huge Muslim population. Nevertheless, there is no scope whatsoever for complacence, and the fact that Islamist extremists - in however small numbers and at whatever level of capability - continue to attempt to mobilize for terrorism under any banner, global or local, is a matter that demands extreme vigilance.
India's response - both at Central and State levels - to the threat of Daesh terrorism has been extremely, one may add, uncharacteristically, proactive, and intelligence and enforcement successes have been exceptional. There are, nevertheless, wide deficits in intelligence and enforcement capabilities across the country, and these cannot be allowed to persist indefinitely. Unless the state's capacities and capabilities on these parameters are dramatically improved, it is inevitable that one of these emerging groups of Islamist terrorists will 'get lucky', with potentially dangerous - and possibly catastrophic - consequences. Tactical successes against Daesh linked terrorism must not blind the state to the urgent necessity of strategic and institutional capacity building, tasks that have long been neglected in India.
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