SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 13, No. 47, May 25, 2015

INDIA

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Bihar and Jharkhand: Subdued Disturbances
Mrinal Kanta Das
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

A top ranking woman Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadre, identified as Sarita aka Urmila Ganjoo, was killed and another cadre was injured in an encounter with Security Forces (SFs) in the Gaya District of Bihar on May 17, 2015. Sarita was a member of the erstwhile Bihar-Jharkhand ‘special area committee’, which was replaced by the East Bihar Eastern Jharkhand Special Area Committee (EBEJSAC), and carried a reward of INR 1.5 million on her head. Acting on a tip-off that some Maoists had gathered near the Tiletand locality to collect INR 20 million as ‘levy’ from a construction company on the night of May 16, four companies of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) reached the place. In the ensuing encounter, which continued throughout the night, Sarita was killed and another Maoist was injured, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Inspector General (IG), Bihar, Arun Kumar disclosed. A walkie talkie, an INSAS rifle and a haul of ammunition were recovered from the spot. The SFs also arrested 10 Maoists, including CPI-Maoist’s Magadh Zone Secretary, Upendra Baitha alias Sanjeevan, and ‘Treasurer’ of the ‘Magadh Zone’, Gorelal Ramani.  Ramani carried a reward of INR 300,000 on his head; while Baitha had a bounty of INR 25,000.

Protesting against the killing of Sarita Ganjoo, the Maoists set ablaze at least 30 trucks on the busy Grand Trunk road in Gaya District  in the intervening night of May 24-25, 2015.

Earlier, on May 10, 2015, during an anti-Maoist operation, Bihar’s Jamui District Police Special Task Force (STF) and CRPF troopers seized a huge cache of explosives that included 26 bags of ammonium nitrate, each containing 25 kilograms, and nine printed cloth banners appealing to people to boycott the forthcoming State Assembly elections.

On April 3, 2015, SFs had seized another cache of arms and ammunition from a Maoist hideout in the Rohtas District of Bihar. The weapons’ cache included three single bore guns, a country-made pistol, 12 rounds of ammunition, 50 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, 50 kilograms of other explosives, and 2,350 detonators. The SFs also defused an improvised explosive device (IED) that the Maoists had planted on the road of Chunhatta village (Rohtas District) to prevent security men from reaching there.

On March 14, 2015, SFs had recovered over 7,000 detonators, 3,000 gelatin sticks, 2,000 kilograms of ammonium nitrate and a carbine during an anti-Maoist operation in Rohtas District.

There has, nevertheless, been a sharp drop in Maoist related incidents in Bihar. According to partial data compiled by South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), there have been five fatalities, including one civilian, two SF personnel, and two Maoists, in Left Wing Extremist (LWE)-related incidents in the first four and half months of 2015, as compared to 13 killed, including six civilians, five SF personnel and two militants, in the same period of 2014. Further, a total of 49 Maoists have been arrested in Bihar this year, as of May 24, 2015.

Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, CPI-Maoist cadres attacked a Central Coalfields Limited [CCL, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL)] office, in the Latehar District of Jharkhand, killing one civilian and injuring several others on May 13, 2015. The Maoists fired around 10 rounds and beat up workers who were present at the office. During the firing, a driver was hit, and later succumbed to his injuries.

On May 6, 2015, a Maoist squad killed a villager, identified as Ravindra Ganjhu, at Lakarmanda village under the Kunda Police Station limits, in the Chatra District of Jharkhand, after branding him a Police ‘informer’ and Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC) member. TPC is a CPI-Maoist splinter group and is engaged in a bloody turf war with its parent organization in Jharkhand.

Despite these incidents, Maoist activities remained roughly at the same subdued level as the past year in Jharkhand, with the current focus principally on Chhattisgarh. According to partial data compiled by SATP, in the first four and half months of 2015, 31 persons, including 11 civilians, two SF personnel and 18 LWEs have been killed in the State, in comparison to 31 persons, including 18 civilians, six SFs and seven LWEs in the same period in 2014. While civilian and SF fatalities declined, LWE casualties have increased. It is useful to recall that Jharkhand recorded 217 fatalities in 2009, and 157 in 2011.

Significantly, among the 18 LWEs killed in Jharkhand in 2015, at least 10 belonged to CPI-Maoist, the highest number of cadres the group has lost in any single State this year. This has occurred at a time when the Maoists appear to be concentrating their activities in the Bastar Division of Chhattisgarh, while seeking to maintain their presence in other areas, with an emphasis on preserving strength.

Interestingly, a couple identified as Deepeshwar Mehta and Dhaneshwari Devi, allegedly involved in illegal trade and supply of explosives to the CPI-Maoist, were blown to pieces in a forest under the Padma Police Station area in the Hazaribagh District of Jharkhand on May 5, 2015, while carrying explosives and other inflammable items.

Acting on a tip off, the Bokaro District Police of Jharkhand and CRPF personnel arrested a CPI-Maoist ‘sub-zonal commander’ of the erstwhile ‘Bihar-Jharkhand special area committee’, identified as Rohit Marandi alias Rohit Manjhi, carrying INR 500,000 reward on his head, from Kashitand Forest under the Gomia block in Bokaro District, on May 18, 2015. Following his interrogation, a Light Machine Gun (LMG) that was looted from the CRPF in 2001, was also recovered and other explosives were seized in another forest at Ulanz village under the Katkamsandi Block near the Hazaribagh-Chatra District borders.

On February 14, 2015, acting on a tip-off, SFs seized some 6,000 kilograms of ammonium nitrate and 20,000 detonators from Lohardaga District of Jharkhand.

Meanwhile, according to a May 14, 2015, report, some 300 villagers in the Gumla District of Jharkhand were meeting day and night, to protest Maoist efforts to recruit school children into their camps. No further detail about such meetings is available in open sources. Further, on May 19, 2015, villages around Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary in the West Singhbhum District of Jharkhand sought paramilitary cover against Maoist atrocities and demanded compensation for those killed by the Maoists since 2009. Close to 1,100 people from hamlets under Patamda and Nimdih Police Stations in West Singhbhum and Saraikela-Kharsawan Districts took out a rally in Ranchi, the State capital. The protestors attempted to gherao the Chief Minister's residence on Kanke Road. Asit Singh Patra, the President of Dalma Anchalik Samiti (Dalma Regional Forum), noted, "They (the Maoists) have been threatening, beating and killing us for over six years. We want government protection." Armed with bows and arrows, axes and bamboos, the protestors held banners that read "No atrocities in the name of Marx, Engels and revolution. Get out of Jharkhand."

Shedding some light on Maoist activities in Bihar and Jharkhand, CRPF IG RK Mishra stated, on May 12, 2015, “Maoists don’t demarcate their field of activities in Jharkhand and Bihar by State borders. Instead, the areas have been divided into various zones being controlled by separate teams such as Jharkhand Regional Committee (JRC) and Bihar Regional Committee (BRC), where Districts of both States are listed. So, both Jharkhand and Bihar are affected by rebel presence in the whole region.” Districts of Bihar such as Banka, Munger, Bhagalpur, Jamui and Nawada come under JRC. Jharkhand’s Godda, Sahebganj, Deoghar, Dumka, Jamtara, Giridih, Bokaro, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, Ranchi, Khunti, Saraikela-Kharsawan, West Singhbhum and East Singhbhum are also part of the JRC’s area of operation. BRC also operates in Jharkhand Districts like Palamau, Chatra, Latehar, Gumla, Lohardaga, Gumla and Simdega. Jehanabad, Gaya, Aurangabad, Rohtas and Kaimur in Bihar fall under BRC’s jurisdiction.

Interestingly, the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), a Jharkhand based LWE group, claimed responsibility for the March 30, 2015, blast at the Bahadurpur Housing Colony flat in Patna. Patna Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Jitendra Rana claimed that the interrogation of Kundan Rai, one of the main accused in the case, who was staying in the flat on rent, revealed that PLFI wanted to extend its operations into Bihar. Meanwhile, a media interview of PLFI chief, Dinesh Gope, published on May 12, 2015, claimed that PLFI had 7,000 to 8,000 cadres across five States, including Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. Gope added that PLFI was talking to tea garden labourers to extend its base into Assam, after having spread into Uttarakhand and Haryana. He also claimed that his cadres were in Sri Lanka, Mauritius, China and Nepal, for talks with “like-minded organizations.”

The Maoist leadership is aware that their movement in India is passing through a difficult time. They nevertheless continue to believe that the ‘revolutionary situation in India is excellent’ and that the current reverses they have suffered are an integral part of the dynamics of protracted warfare, and that a turnaround is imminent. While their networks and organisational structures across their areas of past dominance have suffered tremendous damage, their determination to persist with their ‘people’s war’ shows little diminution. As in the past, Assembly elections in Bihar and Panchayat elections in Jharkhand towards the end of 2015 could provide some opportunity to the Maoists to increase violence.

INDIA

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Islamic State: Lurking Dangers
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

After nearly six months of investigation in a case related to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL, later, the Islamic State (IS)], the National Investigation Agency (NIA), filed a charge sheet on May 20, 2015, before the NIA Special Court in Mumbai. According to the Agency,

…the arrested accused Areeb Majeed along with his three co-conspirators, Saheem Tanki, Fahad Shaikh and Aman Tandel and few others entered into a criminal conspiracy, hatched by them between January 2014 to November 2014, to commit terrorist acts in the name of jihad in Middle East countries, more specifically in Iraq and Syria, and aided and abetted each other by agreeing to commit terrorist acts to strike terror in the minds of the people by joining a banned international terrorist organisation, ISIL, with an intent to threaten the Unity, Integrity, Security and Sovereignty of India… in furtherance of the aforesaid criminal conspiracy underwent various trainings including training in arms and explosives and actively took part in various terrorist acts including fidayeen attacks as a member of ISIL against Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdish forces and thereby committed offences punishable under section 16, section 18 and section 20 of The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 as amended, read with section 125 of Indian Penal Code.

During the course of the investigation it was found that the four accused, all residents of Kalyan in Thane District,, Maharashtra, under the guise of performing pilgrimage, travelled to Syria and joined IS. After joining the IS camp in Jazira (Syria), Areeb Majeed, Saheem Tanki, Fahad Shaikh and Aman Tandel, were named Abu Ali Al Hindi, Abu Uthman Al Hindi, Abu Bakr Al Hindi, and Abu Umar Al Hindi, respectively. After their training, three of them, Areeb Majeed, Fahad Shaikh, and Saheem Tanki were chosen to be fidayeen (suicide bombers). Areeb Majeed, subsequently, took part in several battles on behalf of the IS, and was injured thrice. After an injury in October 2014, he decided to return to India to spread the so-called ‘holy jihad’ in India.

Prior to leaving for India, in November 2014, Majeed had personally met Abu Hammam Iraqi, Ameer (chief) of “Tasnia” (Ministry of Defence and Development) in Syria at his office. Abu Hammam allowed him to leave, and Areeb subsequently tried to sneak into India by taking a Turkish Airlines flight on November 27, 2014, but was arrested by Indian authorities at Mumbai Airport on November 28, 2014. Majeed is presently in judicial custody. Saheem Tanki was reportedly killed in January 2015, while Majeed’s other co-conspirators are still in Iraq/ Syria fighting on behalf of the IS. Though the charge sheet used the word “few others”, it did not reveal any identities.

On November 28, 2014, the day Majeed was arrested, the NIA, Mumbai, as per the orders of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA), had registered a case on the allegations that some Indian youths had joined the IS to wage war against ‘Asiatic Powers in alliance with the Government of India’, and were likely to commit terrorist acts in India.

In June 2014, IS released a “world dominion map” which had the Indian sub-continent shown as part of the Islamic state of Khorasan, within the ‘caliphate’ that IS fighters sought to achieve. Again, on July 1, 2014, IS chief Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, declared,

“Muslims’ rights are forcibly seized in China, India, Palestine, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus, Sham (the Levant), Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Ahvaz, Iran [by the rafidah (Shia)], Pakistan, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, in the East and in the West... It is a khilāfah that gathered the Caucasian, Indian, Chinese, Shami, Iraqi, Yemeni, Egyptian, Maghribi (North African), American, French, German, and Australian... Therefore, rush O Muslims to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis. The earth is Allah’s…” [Emphases added]

Soon thereafter, reports of some youth demonstrating solidarity with the IS started emerging from different quarters of India. Indeed, according to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management, a total of 27 youth were arrested/detained by the security agencies to stop them from joining the IS in Iraq/Syria, including nine youth from Bengaluru, who had arrived in Istanbul (Turkey) on December 24, 2014, but were deported by Turkish authorities after they were allegedly caught trying to cross over to Syria to join the IS. In the latest of such arrests/detentions, 14 students, who were on their way to Syria and Iraq to join IS were stopped at Hyderabad Airport on May 6, 2015. Operation Chakrayuh has been initiated by the Intelligence Bureau to counsel youth who try to join IS, and have placed vulnerable youngsters under constant surveillance. It is, however, not clear how many of these arrested/detained youth are in custody.

According to unconfirmed media reports, citing intelligence agencies a total of 13 Indians have gone to Syria. Media reports indicate that at least six of these are confirmed to have gone to Syria directly from India (the four Kalyan youth and another two youth from Chennai), another six who joined IS are of Indian origin but from different countries. The six who went from different countries, include Karnataka's Bhatkal-born Sultan Abdul Kadir Armar alias Abu Abdullah Al Hindi, who went from Pakistan. Adil Fayaz, a student from Jammu and Kashmir, who was radicalised by Islamic fundamentalists in Australia during his stay there (he did his MBA from Australia’s Queensland University). Thereafter he left for Turkey and entered Syria via Jordan. Mohammed Atif Waseem, whose family is originally from Telangana and settled in Hyderabad, went from London. A youth from Hyderabad and another youth from Kerala went to join Islamic State from Texas and Dubai respectively. No further details about them are available. A Tamil man, Haja Fakkurudeen Usman Ali, from Parangipettai in Cuddalore District of Tamil Nadu, had left for Syria from Singapore on January 22, 2014, to fight alongside the IS, and was reportedly the first recruit of Indian origin in IS. Usman Ali, a Singapore permanent resident, had recruited the two youth from Chennai. No detail about how the 13^th Indian, Abdul Rahman, reached Syria is available in open sources.

Of these 13, four have died fighting in the battlefields of Iraq/Syria. A Twitter handle — @magnetgas16 — on April 7, 2015, claimed that a third Indian died fighting for the IS, while another such Twitter handle — @mukminSharia — identified the killed Indian as Abdul Rahman. “2 indian in IS Performed martyrdom operation 1 is abu Abdullah Al hindi [reference to Sultan Armar] and 2nd Abu Uthman al hindi [reference to Shaheen Tanki]. 3rd was killed. May ALLAH accept them # IS,” tweeted @magnetgas16, on the same day. The fourth Indian to die in Syria was Mohammed Atif Waseem. His family received an email in Arabic purportedly from IS on April 24, 2015, informing them about Waseem's death in the fighting.

Only one of the four deceased, Shaheen Tanki, had gone to the battle zone directly from India. As mentioned above, two others – Abu Abdullah Al Hindi and Mohammed Atif Waseem went from Pakistan and London respectively. No further detail about the fourth deceased, Abdul Rahman, is available in open sources.

Union Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary in a statement made in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Indian Parliament) on March 18, 2015, informed that a small number of Indian youth have joined the IS after travelling to Iraq and Syria. He further disclosed that intelligence and security agencies had thwarted some youth attempting to travel to Syria and Iraq, and that they had been placed under counseling and were being monitored. A certain number of ISIS sympathisers had also been placed under surveillance by security agencies. No numbers or identities were revealed.  Earlier, on March 11, 2015, Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary had informed the Rajya Sabha that a total of four pro-IS activists, including two from Maharashtra and one each from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, had been arrested in the country since the last one year.

Meanwhile, on December 16, 2014, Union Home Minister (UHM) Rajnath Singh had informed Parliament that IS has been banned in India, as all outfits proscribed by the United Nations were automatically banned in India. Subsequently, through a notification dated February 17, 2015, UMHA banned the Islamic State as terrorist organization under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) at Serial No. 38 in the UAPA Schedule. The notification stated, "Such recruitment of youth to the outfit from India and their radicalisation is a matter of serious concern for the country especially with regard to its likely impact on national security when such youth return to India."

Areeb’s revelation that he decided to return to India to spread ‘jihad’, underlined UMHA’s concern as it confirmed the lurking threat of IS within India. Unconfirmed reports also indicate that five persons – Imran Khan Muhammad Sharif, Wasim Khan, Mohammad Rizwan, Anwar Qureshi and Mazhar – arrested from Ratlam Town in Madhya Pradesh in April 2014, were part of an IS-linked jihad cell planning strikes in India. Joint Secretary, UMHA (Internal Security), M. Ganapathy, confirmed the neutralization of the Ratlam module on May 22, 2015.

Crucially, according to the May 20 NIA charge sheet, IS has established a strong presence in the cyberworld and has found most of its recruits/sympathizers through social media websites. The arrest of IS operative Mehdi Masroor Biswas on December 13, 2014, from his residence in Jalahalli in north Bengaluru (Karnataka), and subsequent revelations underscored the potential of such activities. Using his Twitter handle @ShamiWitness, Biswas had made 124,000 tweets. Of these, 15,000 tweets were directly in connection with the IS --- defending their actions; praising their work (including the appalling mass beheadings); inspiring youth to spread IS ideology and join the war in West Asian as voluntary jihadists. Prior to this, he had tweeted on behalf of IS under a different handle @ElSaltador. At the time of his arrest, Mehdi had 17,800+ Twitter followers of which 15,000+ were from foreign countries.

The present Government has shown some awareness of the cyberthreat and, indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated, on May 17, 2015, “We can seize the economic opportunities of the digital world and work together to make it more secure against growing cyber threats.” Though the Government has announced several measures to eliminate such threat, current trends suggest that it will take a long time to translate these into effective action, unless the Government demonstrates a much stronger will to expedite the process.

Meanwhile, creating a new dimension to the challenge, a February 12, 2015, report claimed that nearly 35 self-radicalised jihadis were physically moving around to find recruits for the IS. Quoting an unnamed intelligence official, the report stated, "The campaign is being carried out by word of mouth, not through the internet."

According to reports, UMHA is studying an "extremism counseling hotline" set up recently by the Austrian authorities, for possible replication in India. Such a counseling facility, if found feasible in the Indian context, would enable parents, teachers and friends of "vulnerable and indoctrinated" youth to seek professional help for their "deradicalisation".

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh noted, on November 29, 2014, "Even though ISIS was born in Iraq and Syria, the Indian subcontinent cannot stay untouched by it -- we need to be aware of that reality." India has found a relatively minuscule number of radicalized youth joining, or attempting to join, the IS, as compared to much higher numbers from countries with tiny Muslim populations, and this is certainly grounds for some satisfaction. This cannot, however, justify any measure of complacency. The dynamics of radical mobilization are still poorly understood, and it is not clear what triggers could spark a dramatic discontinuity in these trends. India’s vulnerabilities, moreover, remain tremendous, particularly in terms of the capacities of intelligence and enforcement agencies to detect and preempt any such discontinuities. With unremitting and drastic transformations in the global order, and growing instability, particularly in the Asian region, extraordinary efforts will be needed to ensure that the situation within India does not enter a more treacherous spiral of radicalization and terrorism.

Note: Earlier, it was erroneously mentioned that 10 Indians have gone to Syria. The correct number is 13.  The mistake was rectified on July 4, 2015.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

INDIA

Assam

Manipur

Meghalaya

Left-wing Extremism

Maharashtra

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

KP

Sindh

PAKISTAN (Total)