NEW DELHI // In the wake of the ISIL attacks in Paris, India is ramping up security around foreign missions and has warned of “the possibility of ISIL-sponsored terrorist action on Indian territory”.
The home ministry issued a security advisory to state governments on Monday, warning that ISIL aims to “expand the arc of high profile terror actions beyond the core area of Syria and Iraq”.
State governments were asked to review intelligence reports about ISIL, identify vulnerable targets, lay down contingency plans, and neutralise any potential threats.
Indian security agencies have been on heightened alert since ISIL uploaded an audio clip in Bengali on October 27 calling young Muslim men to radicalisation, officials said.
“Though ISIL has not been able to establish any significant presence in India, its success in radicalising some youth, attracting certain sections of the local population or the Indian diaspora to physically participate in its activities, or the possibility of piggybacking on terrorist groups operating in India” poses dangers, the advisory said.
In New Delhi, diplomatic missions and embassies – particularly those of the US, Russia, Israel, Australia, Turkey and major European nations – will be provided with enhanced security cordons, the advisory added. These will include more patrols by security personnel and checkpoints on nearby roads.
Rajnath Singh, India’s home minister, said on Tuesday that ISIL “is not a threat for any particular country but for the entire world. India is alert about ISIL”.
The ISIL audio message – hosted on SoundCloud and lasting two minutes and 47 seconds – is a chant that proclaims: “The caliphate is back.”
It urges young men to take up “jihad” and “reach for martyrdom if not victory”.
A home ministry official told The Hindu newspaper on Wednesday that the message was probably uploaded by Bangladeshi ISIL recruits in Syria and Iraq "to connect to the Bangladesh audience".
“We don’t think it can have any impact in India. But we are still keeping a watch,” he said.
In Bangladesh, ISIL has claimed the murders of two foreigners – an Italian and a Japanese – since September. On Wednesday morning, an Italian priest was shot and wounded in Dinajpur, a district that borders India. No organisation has claimed the shooting as yet.
Their deaths come amid a wave of murders of liberal bloggers, writers and publishers in Bangladesh, most of which have been claimed by Ansarullah Bangla Team, a militant group that is an Al Qaeda affiliate.
Hassanul Haq Inu, Bangladesh's information minister, told The National that his government was ascribing the various murders to covert militant groups that have ties to the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party.
“There are groups who are functioning covertly under various names. Some have militant training, some don’t have militant training,” Mr Inu said. “They are preparing for an Islamic revolution. They want to support all Hindus, all Buddhists, all Christians. They’re fanatics.”
The Bangladesh government has repeatedly denied that ISIL is active in the country.
"It's absolutely rubbish. There is no ISIL in the country, no way," Asaduzamman Khan, Bangladesh's home minister, told the Associated Press on October 4, days after the Italian aid worker, Cesare Tavella, was killed. "The claims are fishy and we are examining [them]."
Such claims were posted online, Mr Khan said. “Why should we accept that unless we prove that? We cannot accept that.”
Amena Mohsin, a political-science professor at Dhaka University, noted that the growing conservatism across the Islamic world is spreading to Bangladesh as well.
Traditional family networks have frayed, “and there is a kind of alienation in society”, Ms Mohsin said. In such a situation, “people are perhaps turning towards religion for some structure ... And they’re also starting to believe that Islam is under siege.”
Such radicalisation could well spill over into India, Ms Mohsin added.
No terror acts in India have yet been claimed by ISIL.
But reports have emerged, over the past 18 months, of roughly two dozen young men from India travelling to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIL. At least six have been reported killed.
In September, the UAE deported five Indians suspected of having links with ISIL. These included an Indian woman named Afsha Jabeen, who was allegedly trying to persuade Indian Muslims to join the extremist group.
Ms Jabeen was arrested in Hyderabad upon her return to India.
In July, an investigative report by the American newspaper USA Today quoted a 32-page ISIL document saying that preparations for an attack in India were under way.
“Even if the US tries to attack with all its allies, which undoubtedly it will, the ummah (the global Muslim community) will be united, resulting in the final battle,” the newspaper quoted the ISIL document as saying.
ssubramanian@thenational.ae