(The following excerpt has been taken, with permission, from Chapter 12 – ‘The Online Six Degrees of Separation’ of the book The ISIS Peril: The World’s most feared Terror Group and its Shadow on South Asia, written by Kabir Taneja. Published by Penguin, the hardcover is 208 pages long and is priced at Rs 349.)
(The sub-headings are not part of the book, and have been added by The Quint.)
Sirajuddin, a resident of Gulburga in Karnataka, was arrested by police in December 2015 in Jaipur, Rajasthan, for his alleged pro-ISIS activities on the internet. Sirajuddin, then in his early thirties, was accused of using online media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram and so on to incite and recruit pro-ISIS people to perform the holy trip to the caliphate.
Sirajuddin, who at the time was living in the Jawahar Nagar locality of the city, allegedly ran a number of social media accounts and groups to propagate ISIS ideology. There have been multiple instances of such groups with both Indian and international members, often with no connections between each other than their affinity for Islamic State, coming up across the board on multiple platforms. Sirajuddin was seemingly one of the people tightly woven into the pro-ISIS narrative.
He created multiple online identities, Facebook groups, Telegram groups and e-mail IDs in late 2015 in an attempt to bring together like-minded people. His Facebook activities and promotions got him in touch with a host of allegedly pro-ISIS individuals from around the world. He shared links to his Telegram group called Official Bug, which claimed to have active Islamic State members from Libya. This almost became a selling point for the chat group, and Sirajuddin befriended many people online from around the world who shared his views and affinity towards ISIS.
Geography was not a strategic play here; the group was not created to help local radicalized and pro-ISIS people in a particular locality, or even India as a country, but just as an avenue to gather ISIS sympathizers from the world over. As far as radicalization online goes, once again, Sirajuddin’s case highlights the ideological confusion, or a complete lack of ideological understanding of jihadist groups and their mandates. Sirajuddin, like others, blurred the lines between Al Qaeda and ISIS related groups.
During his online activities, Sirajuddin also came in touch with women who were inclined towards joining the caliphate. In one instance, he started to converse with a Kenyan national who had the online identity Ukhty Minaa.
During discussions with other fellow members of his Official Bug group on Telegram, he professed his desire to marry Minaa. Upon being reminded that he is a married man, Sirajuddin allegedly replied: ‘Marrying a Mujahidah (a woman mujahid) is a dream. Inshallah she will be my ticket to jannah.’
The Cult Attraction of Baghdadi
The talks between the members of these online groups, while fable-like in nature, seem to factor in the eventualities of their capture or arrest due to these communications and not because of their intended travels to the caliphate.
They ask each other, whether they have ecosystems in place to bail them out from prison in case of capture by law enforcement agencies. Ironically, these conversations and discussions are part of legal documents on court cases against many of these individuals.
More than perhaps ideological indoctrination, it is cult figures such as Baghdadi himself that attract people towards ISIS. Sirajuddin, in his online pro-ISIS tirades, also seemingly spent considerable time promoting Baghdadi’s name for Time magazine’s Person Of The Year title, oddly, a Western publication, which technically Sirajuddin as a disciple of Islamic State should be dead against. Sirajuddin, according to accounts, asked his online ecosystem to ‘hack their [Time magazine’s] website and declare “Emir ul Momin” (roughly translated to the leader of the believers) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as Time’s Person of the Year’. He even created memes to further such propaganda on social media.
Inside a Pro-ISIS Telegram Channel
His account also offers a small yet important window into the family life, and reactions of a family to a member sliding towards radicalization. Families tend to play a very important part in de-radicalization programmes that many Indian states such as Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and so on employ. Sirajuddin talked with his wife via WhatsApp and let her know of his intentions. These chats also revealed that he had a young son. The chats showcased friction between the two, as Sirajuddin clarified to his wife of his aims of being a member of ISIS and travelling to the caliphate. In one of these chats, he revealed to her about his contacts with ISIS, his aim to join the group with or without his family, work towards jannat (heaven) through his deeds done in the name of Islamic State and finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, make his son a mujahid as well.
Sirajuddin’s online activities only expanded, and instead of traditional social media such as Facebook, he became more active on Telegram. He was part of a host of Telegram groups, and invited members of the groups that he ran to join other groups as well in order to create a globalized network. He also joined a channel called Caliphate Cyber Army, Elite Section. The members of this group were seemingly mostly techies. and hackers, who posted screenshots of successful hackings of websites, mostly those belonging to governments in places such as Libya, Iraq and so on.
A Telegram channel that Sirajuddin became a part of in late 2015 was called HindBattle, with its name being changed to Ghazwathul Hind later on. There were more than 353 members in the said group, including Sirajuddin. However, there is no data available to know whether the members were Indians, South Asians or global, who joined in to support pro-ISIS Indian accounts.
Pro-ISIS people joining each other’s groups, lists and chat rooms was a common occurrence, a show of support towards the unity of the caliphate and their common aim to travel to this new Islamic proto-state and become a citizen of this land. ‘So they are worried about growing power of IS? May Allah cast more terror and fear in their hearts,’ Sirajuddin told one Fatimah, an alleged wife of an IS soldier from Buenos Aires. ‘Inshallah very soon [travel to caliphate], pray to Allah sister we all die death of a shaheed in Islamic land, keep patience sister and wait for Allah’s call. Inshallah sister, we shall do that soon [travel to ISIS territory; Fatimah wanted to travel to Libya]. I am getting a new phone number for Dawlah (another word for Islamic State, with a literal translation being just “the State”) work.’
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)