Terror's new recruits: young and willing to kill

TECHIE AND 'TERRORIST: Tauqeer, who is accused of leading the technological operations for Delhi blasts.

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New Delhi: India has witnessed a series of terror attacks in important cities since 2005 that were carried out by highly skilled and motivated young men.

“We must realise that the person perpetrating terror is not the rickshaw-puller who puts the bomb but the one who is operating through the Internet,” says KPS Gill, former chief of Punjab Police who led the crackdown on Sikh militancy.

Gill’s statement is true for the recent serial bomb blasts in Indian cities. None of the people arrested for allegedly organizing the recent serial blasts in Delhi was over 24 and two of the accused are still in college. Md. Atif Amin, 24, was allegedly the leader of the terror module and was studying for a degree in human rights.

His alleged lieutenant Zia ur Rehman was just 22. He was a BA student at Jamia Milia Islamia and allegedly in charge of all logistics for the module.

The third important leader of the group was Md. Shakeel, 24. A BA student at Jamia, he was allegedly responsible for recruiting supporters for the group.

Safdar Nagori, the chief of the breakaway faction of the Students Islamic Movement of India, was keen on recruiting young software engineers who could help in improving the planning and execution of terror attacks.

Nagori and other older members of SIMI, like 27-year-old industrial electronics graduate Tauqeer and cleric Mufti Abu Bashar, are believed to be responsible for indoctrinating and recruiting young Muslim students. The police claim that some of the suspects in custody have expressed remorse.