ISI targets Indian students abroad to build ‘white-collar’ terror modules

Indian intelligence agencies have warned that Pakistan’s ISI is targeting Indian students studying medicine and engineering abroad to build “white-collar” terror modules. Officials fear these radicalised students may return to India as covert operatives, especially amid heightened scrutiny on similar modules within the country.

New Delhi: Intelligence agencies have warned that attempts are being made to ramp up radicalisation drives across the country. While fostering extremism has been an ongoing affair in India, the agencies warn that attempts are being made to radicalise a large number of people and set up white collared modules on the lines of the one that was busted in Faridabad.

The Intelligence agencies are concerned that it is not just the radicalisation of professionals in India that the country must be concerned with. Indian students abroad have also now become the target.

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The ISI’s agents are targeting Indian students studying abroad with the aim of radicalising them. Most of these students would eventually come back to India after they complete their education and those who have been radicalised pose a big threat to the system, an official said.

An Intelligence Bureau official said that they are not only looking for cases within India, but those taking place abroad as well.

The ISI is particularly targeting students who are studying medicine or engineering. This has become the new norm where Pakistan based operatives are picking students from medical and engineering colleges. White collared terrorists are more lethal and their profession gives them a cover as a result of which they very often go undetected.

Further they are more adept in handling the web and this helps them communicate and plan discreetly.

Inputs that the agencies have received suggests that the ISI has set up a team to identify Indian students who have taken up admissions for either engineering or medicine in the US, UK, Germany and Australia.

Further, officials are also checking the antecedents of nearly 12,000 students who were studying medicine in Bangladesh at the time of the 2024 protests that led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina.

Following Hasina’s ouster, the Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing Islamic Chatra Shibir (ICS) had undertaken a major drive to identify, radicalise and recruit Indian students studying medicine, an official said.

The ISI has also got in touch with several hardline clerics in various countries to target Indian students and indoctrinate them. The ISI’s intention is to keep them ready to strike the moment they return to India.

The ISI is trying to create modules similar to the one at Faridabad. The Indian agencies fear that similar modules are in the making, but with students from India who are studying abroad. While the Faridabad module was busted, it still managed to operate discreetly since 2001. The communication never went out and the planning was done in the most discreet manner.

The members of the Faridabad module only conversed through encrypted chat applications or at the hospital. They even discussed their plans while at the university and also at their hostels. These are usually considered to be low-risk zones by the Intelligence agencies.

The members of these modules would have late night discussions about their plans. However they never came under the radar as they would term these as academic circles intended for group study. It was during these discussions, they spoke about logistics and reconnaissance.

With the Faridabad module being busted, the ISI realises that the scanner on such activities would be high. To avoid such scrutiny and to avoid getting busted, the ISI now is targeting Indian students studying abroad. It wants these students to form similar modules, once they return to their country, an official said.

Another official said that among all the countries, the maximum scrutiny is on Bangladesh. This is because there is an entire eco-system that the ISI has created with the Jamaat to radicalise Indian students, especially at the medical colleges.