South Asia Terrorism Portal

INDIA

Assam: Islamist Shadow
Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On August 31, 2022, Police arrested Amjad Ajmal Hussain, an Ansar al-Islam/Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) suspect, in the Fatasil Ambari neighborhood of Guwahati in Kamrup (Metropolitan) District.  

On August 28, 2022, Police arrested two suspected ABT extremists, identified as Akbar Ali and Abul Kalam Azad, from a house in the Sorbhog area of Barpeta District.

On August 26, 2022, Police arrested an ABT linked extremist, identified as Hafizur Rahman, in Goalpara District.

On August 25, 2022, Police arrested an ABT suspect, identified as Abdus Sobahan, hailing from Goalpara District. Sobahan was arrested in Bongaigaon District.

On August 20, 2022, Police arrested two Imams (prayer leader of a mosque), Abdus Subhan and Jalaluddin Sheikh, from Goalpara District, after their links were traced to two different modules of the ABT. The main suspect, Abu Tallah, a Bangladeshi national who operated from Morigaon, who was linked to these modules, is absconding.

These arrests are part of Police efforts to nullify multiple ABT-linked/inspired modules, spread across Dhubri, Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Goalpara, Morigaon, Kamrup (Metropolitan) and Nagaon Districts, which have come to focus since March 2022. On March 4, 2022, the Assam Police arrested five ABT cadres including Saiful Islam aka Haroon Rashid, a Bangladeshi national, from Barpeta.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over Saiful Islam’s case on March 22, 2022. According to the NIA First Information Report, there is an active module of ABT in Barpeta District, led by Saiful Islam, who entered India illegally and was engaged as an Arabic Teacher at the Dhakaliapara Masjid. Saiful Islam was active in motivating impressionable youth/men to join jihadi outfits and to work in modules, Ansars (sleeper cells), to create a base for Al-Qaeda and its manifestations in India. The other members of the module were Khairul Islam, Badshah Suleiman Khan, Noushad Ali and Taimur Rahman Khan. All the accused persons were involved in the commission of various offences, including conspiracy, waging war against the state, harbouring, and collecting funds for committing unlawful and terrorist acts.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 30 ABT-linked extremists have been arrested by the Police from different Districts of the State since March 4, 2022, (till September 11, 2022).

Though details about ABT activities are still emerging, Assam Chief Minister (CM) Himanta Biswa Sarma stated on August 4, 2022, that ABT had increased its focus on Assam during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the administration and police were busy handling the crisis. He disclosed,

Further, on August 28, 2022, Special Director General of Police (Law and Order) G. P. Singh noted that, “till now, we haven’t received any indication of arms training’’. When asked whether the madrasas (seminaries)-linked to ABT were registered, he asserted, “We will take action if they are not as per govt guidelines.” Earlier, on April 25, 2022, Additional Director General of Police (Special Branch) Hiren Nath added that, though “there was no formal arms training” by the ABT, they have “started indoctrination”.

Also, on September 1, 2022, a long-time observer of militancy in the Northeast, Rajeev Bhattacharya, comparing ABT with others like Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), wrote, “Jamatul-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), for instance, was structured unlike the ABT which is loosely organised and decentralized.”

There have been earlier instances of infiltration by ABT into Assam as well. The interrogation of a Bangladeshi ABT cadre, Faisal Ahmed, arrested from the Bommanahalli area of Bangalore city, Karnataka, on July 1, 2022, revealed that he had arrived in Silchar in the Cachar District of Assam in 2015. He, thereafter, made a fake voter ID card under the name, Shahid Majumdar, and also obtained an Indian passport. Importantly, Faisal Ahmed was one of the four ABT militants convicted for killing Bangladeshi blogger Ananta Bijoy Das in thr Subidbazar area of Sylhet on May 12, 2015. On March 30, 2022, the Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal-based in Sylhet convicted and sentenced four persons, including Faisal Ahmed to death.

Meanwhile, another Bangladesh-based Islamist terrorist group, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) continues with its efforts to extend its influence in Assam. The presence of JMB came to notice when, on October 2, 2014, Shakil Ahmed and Suvon Mandal aka Subhan, both active members of the JMB, were killed, and Abdul Hakim aka Hassan sustained injuries in an accidental explosion in a rented two-story house at Khagragarh under the Burdwan Police Station of Burdwan District, West Bengal. All three were found to be Bangladeshi citizens. A spate of arrests that followed the incident underscored the extent of the spread of the outfit.

According to the SATP database, since October 2, 2014, at least 61 JMB cadres have been arrested in Assam. The last arrest was made on July 7, 2022, when two JMB terrorists, Mokkodos Ali Ahmed and Sofiqul Islam, were arrested from Barpeta District.

The interrogation of arrested JMB militants revealed that their objective was to counter purported ‘Bodo aggression’. Between 2008 and 2014, there have been periodic clashes between Bodos and Muslims in lower Assam.  In 2008, at least 55 persons were killed in such clashes; 109 were killed in 2012 and 46 in 2014.

Before the advent of these Bangladesh-based jihadi groups, several Islamist extremist formations existed in Assam. The then Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rockybul Hussain informed the State Assembly on December 15, 2014, that between January 2001 to November 2014, a total of 130 Islamist extremists, including 106 Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) militants, 14 Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) militants and 10 JMB militants had been arrested in the State. Since then (December 1, 2014) another 149 Islamic extremists [including 55 JMB, 30 ABT, 26 Muslim Tiger Force of Assam (MTFA), 21 MULTA,10 Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen (HM), five Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), one each from Muslim Liberation Army (MLA) and Peoples United Liberation Front (PULF], have been arrested in Assam.

A majority of the Islamist militant groups in Assam were founded between 1990 and 1996 with the prime objective of safeguarding the ‘overall interests’ of the minority Muslim communities in the region. These groups had the backing of Pakatan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led regime in Bangladesh. According to SATP, at least 21 Islamist terror formations have operated in Assam at different periods.

The entry of the Bangladeshi groups is partly due to the severe crackdown by the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government of Bangladesh that had disrupted the networks of all Islamist groups, including the JMB and ABT, forcing them underground or to seek refuge in bordering regions of Indian states like Assam, Bengal or Tripura, where the demographic composition is favorable for concealment.

Moreover, the present polarized political debates have created a perception of targeting/isolating religious minorities (especially Bengali speaking Muslims) in the state, due to recent events, including the Supreme Court monitored updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) 1951, followed by the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), as well as administrative measures such as ‘anti-encroachment drives’ to free government land. The division of Muslims along ethno-linguistic lines can also be a pull factor for these jihadi groups.

On July 6, 2022, the State Government approved the identification of five Muslim sub-groups – Syed, Goriya, Moriya, Deshi and Julha – as Khilonjia Musalman (indigenous Assamese Muslims), to set them apart from Bengali-speaking or Bengal-origin Muslims. According to a report, the current Muslim population in the state is at 11.8 million, out of which the five ‘indigenous” groups are estimated at 4.2 million.

On September 23, 2021, two persons were killed and another 11, including nine policemen, injured, when a large mob clashed with the Police during an eviction drive in Dholpur 3, Darang District. Those displaced were mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims who had been “illegally occupying” government land. The exercise gained further notoriety after a clip of Bijoy Baniya, a photographer accompanying the Police, jumping on the dead body of one of the deceased went viral on social media.

The decentralized structure of the currently active Bangladeshi modules requires greater intelligence inputs and local collaboration. The State Police is consequently engaging with various sections of the Muslim community. On September 4, 2022, State DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta held a meeting with Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, Ahle Sunnat Wal Zamat, Nadwatut Tammer and Ahle Hadees, at the Police Headquarters in Guwahati, and urged the representatives to mandatorily register around 1,500 private madrasas (seminaries) under the societies act, upload the details of the madrasas (from teachers to source of funding to the land on which they have been set up), on a portal that the Government is designing.

The conflict in Assam is largely shaped on the discourse of identity-based politics based on insider-outsider identification, as well as claims to autochthonous status and primacy over local resources, but has gradually been transformed into a religious struggle, and a polarizing politics to consolidate electoral gains. The dominant narratives are likely to be counterproductive, rupturing social bonds and leading to destabilization.

INDIA

Jharkhand: TPC Diminishing
Deepak Kumar Nayak
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On September 9, 2022, Security Forces (SFs) arrested four cadres of the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee (TSPC/TPC), a splinter group of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), during a search operation in the Bundu area under Keredari Police Station limits in Hazaribagh District. The arrested cadres were identified as Sanjay Karmali, Pankaj Karmali, Suraj Kumar and Prabhat Kumar Ram. Police recovered three pistols, 18 bullets, two bikes and five mobiles from these cadres.

On September 5, 2022, a self-styled ‘commander’ of the TSPC/TPC, identified as Nirmal Bhuiyan, was arrested from Gongad village under Panki Police Station limits in Palamu District. Police arrested Bhuiyan when he came to Block Programme Officer Meena Devi’s residence in Gongad to extort money. Bhuiyan assaulted Devi and her husband when they refused to acceded to his demands. On being informed about the incident, a Police team rushed to the spot and arrested Bhuiyan, who had come to the village alone. Around half-a-dozen cases were previously registered against him in various Police Stations in Latehar and Palamu Districts. Bhuiyan was active in the banned outfit since 2012 and was evading arrest. 

On September 1, 2022, a ‘zonal commander’ of the TSPC/TPC, identified as Bhairon Ganjhu aka Bhaskar aka Veerapan, was arrested from the Kasiyatu Forest area under Simaria Police Station limits in Chatra District. A cache of arms and ammunition, including a sophisticated US made weapon and an INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) assault rifle looted from the Police was recovered from him. Ganjhu was wanted in more than 16 cases and was active in Jharkhand's Chatra, Palamu and Latehar Districts.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 30 TSPC/TPC cadres have been arrested in Jharkhand since the beginning of the current year (data till September 11, 2022). During the corresponding period of 2021, 18 TSPC/TPC cadres had been arrested. A total of 18 TSPC/TPC cadres were arrested through 2021. Since 2002, when TSPC/TPC was formed, at least 228 TSPC/TPC cadres have been arrested.

SF pressure has led to the surrender of one TSPC/TPC cadre in the current year (data till September 11, 2022), in addition to two in the corresponding period of 2021, as well as through 2021. Since 2002, at least eight TSPC/TPC cadres have surrendered.

A total of three TSPC/TPC cadres have been killed in the current year (data till September 11, 2022). There were no such killings during the corresponding period of 2021, nor in the remaining period of 2021. However, since the formation of TSPC/TPC in 2002, a total of 70 TSPC/TPC cadres have been killed.

Significantly, since 2002, TSPC/TPC has not been found involved in the killing of any SF personnel, thus far (data till September 11, 2022).

The last TSPC/TPC-linked civilian killing was reported on February 2, 2017, when TSPC/TPC shot dead Munna Singh aka Munna Ganjhu and his associate Murari Sharma in the Kunda area of Chatra District, Jharkhand.

Since its formation in 2002, TSPC/TPC has been responsible for 22 civilian fatalities. 

Though TSPC/TPC has been on a continuous decline, the group’s disruptive activities continue.

On August 1, 2022, around 25 armed cadres of the TSPC/TPC created a ruckus in the Balram Stone Mines Pipradih compound in the Olhe village of the Bariatu Block (administrative sub division) under Balumath Police Station limits in Latehar District. Kanhai Singh, the operator of Balram Stone Mines, was being continuously threatened by TPC cadres for ‘levy’ (extortion money), and when the cadres did not get the ‘levy’ despite threats, armed cadres reached the mines and overpowered the security personnel there. Later, the cadres broke the glass of a Poclain excavator and punctured a tractor tire by shooting into it. The TSPC/TPC cadres threatened the SF personnel with dire consequences if the work re-started without their ‘orders’.

Earlier, SAIR had noted that TSPC/TPC activities were mostly linked to their ‘levy’ demands from businessmen and contractors, and the outfit is more of a criminal gang than an ideologically driven Naxalite movement.

Meanwhile, according to a May 20, 2022, report, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted raids at seven places [six in Chatra District and one in Ranchi District] in Jharkhand in connections with the Magadh Amrapali Colliery terror funding case, and the colliery's links with the TSPC/TPC. During the raids, the NIA seized firearms, ammunition, INR 366,000 in cash, 11 vehicles, incriminating documents and digital devices. The NIA stated,

Indeed, a Pandora's Box was opened with the arrest of a wanted 'zonal commander' of the TSPC/TPC, Bhikhan Ganjhu, and his close aide Rahul Munda, from Ranchi District on March 16, 2022. Bhikhan Ganjhu was wanted by the NIA for smuggling of arms and ammunition to Maoists and gangsters with help of Naga militants. Commenting on the arrest, Surendra Kumar Jha, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Ranchi, stated,

NIA's step came after the seizure of five sophisticated weapons on February 7, 2019, by the Bihar Police, including Under Barrel Grenade Launchers (UBGLs) and a large consignment of AK-47 ammunition being smuggled, allegedly from the Myanmar border, with the help of some Naga militants, to be supplied to Naxalites [Left Wing Extremists] and gangsters in the country.

Of the 136 most wanted Naxalites/Criminals with rewards on their heads, listed by the Jharkhand Police, at least nine are from TSPC/TPC, including:

TSPC/TPC is one among 18 Left Wing Extremist groups  operating in Jharkhand. Other significant outfits include the CPI-Maoist, Peoples' Liberation Front of India (PLFI) and Jharkhand Jan Mukti Parishad (JJMP).

In spite of having been substantially incapacitated, TSPC/TPC remains a weak spot in the State’s security, as its disruptive activities continue to create problems for the establishment. Coherent, coordinated and targeted SF operations against the outfit, particularly against its fugitive ‘chief’ Brajesh Singh Ganjhu, are needed to bring a permanent end to this menace.

AFGHANISTAN

International terrorist formations like the Al-Qaeda support the Taliban, says NRF leader Ahmad Massoud: National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) leader Ahmad Massoud said that international terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda support the Taliban and they suppress the people of Afghanistan. The leader of NRF said that so far, no foreign country has supported the NRF, and the front is continuing its activities by the support of the people. Amaj News, September 5, 2022.