To stop the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other banned terror outfits from spreading “barbaric and inhuman” propaganda in India,
Delhi Police’s anti-terror unit, the Special Cell, will fight terror organisations in the virtual world to stop youth from getting radicalised. The Special Cell will monitor all social networking sites and mobile applications.
Delhi Police’s top brass is revamping the Special Cell and is setting up a social networking site surveillance unit at a cost of Rs 6 crore at their Lodhi Colony office. A team of 20 officials will be working 24x7 to monitor sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and chat applications such as Telegram, Wickr, Gliph and WhatsApp.
“The hardware and software will be procured by global tendering. Many companies have presented their demonstrations to us,” said a senior police officer. It will help the unit monitor “barbaric activities” of suspected terrorists.
The officer said monitoring the volume of material on social media sites is a challenge. “We will be using keywords to crack the coded language between suspected terrorists,” he said. Around 500 hours of videos are uploaded on social networking sites every minute. The unit is planning to procure software that can filter “incriminating material”.
ISIS is using Twitter and Facebook to recruit youths. “With the help of social networking sites surveillance unit, we can indentify people behind the radicalisation and their potential targets,” said the officer.
Such infrastructure is only accessible to Central intelligence agencies. Delhi Police will be the first force to get permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs to start the social networking surveillance unit. “When terror organisations are running a campaign on social networking sites, we need to upgrade ourselves to fight terror,” the officer added.
In the last six months, the Special Cell arrested around a dozen suspected terrorists, indoctrinated through the Internet. In May this year, three “highly radicalised” youths were arrested in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh for their alleged link with JeM and for making IEDs to carry out bombings in Delhi. Sajid Ahmad, Sameer Ahmed and Shakir Ansari were allegedly in touch with JeM members through social networking sites and were awaiting for instructions to carry out terror strikes. The trio had also lured 10 youths from Delhi, who were detained and later let off. Their movement was being monitored by Central intelligence agencies for the past one year. Again in January, four ISIS suspects were arrested from Haridwar for allegedly planning to carry out bombings during the ongoing Ardh Kumbh. Later, one of their associates Mohsin Sayeed was arrested from ISBT, Delhi. He was found to be radicalised through the Internet. In both the cases, the Special Cell was totally dependent on Central intelligence agencies.