Invoking UAPA, Centre Bans IS

NEW DELHI:  India has banned the Islamic State (IS) terror outfit and all its offshoots, saying the group is radicalising and recruiting vulnerable youth from India. And there was a major threat to national security when such youths returned to India.

“The Centre is satisfied that the Islamic State/Islamic State of Iraq and Levant/Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/Daish is a terrorist organisation and has decided to add the said organisation and all its manifestations to the First Schedule to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967,” the Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA) said in a notification issued on February 16. 

According to the MHA, the IS has been resorting to terrorism to consolidate its position in that area by recruiting youths for ‘global jihad’ to achieve the objective of establishing its own ‘Caliphate’ by overthrowing democratically elected governments.

An IS renegade – Arif Majeed – chose to return to India after spending several months in Iraq and Syria. Intelligence officials who had interrogated Arif had said that he was highly radicalised and showed no sign of remorse.

The NIA investigators said that the three other Mumbai youths, who had travelled to Iraq with Arif to join the IS, were also keen on returning home. Even though the Centre had earlier said that it would be considerate in dealing with the cases of those who wished to return, in order to ensure their reintegration into society, it has now decided not to adopt a soft approach after Arif seemed to be too much radicalised.

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