The National Investigation Agency (NIA) charged a woman and five others on Saturday in a case that involved the online radicalisation of the vulnerable youth by the outlawed terror organisation Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in Gujarat.
The chargesheet submitted in front of a special NIA court in Ahmedabad, according to the officials. The suspects are known as Mohammad Fardeen, Kureshi Sefulla, Mohammad Faique, Zeeshan Ali, and Shama Parveen. The probe found out that the group was actively deployed on social media as a means of propagating extremist propaganda as well as advancing anti-India narratives that have a connection to AQIS.
The NIA stated that the accused spread provocative messages including the transfer of videos, audio clips, and pictures on several accounts on the internet to promote the outlawed terror group. These online activities were claimed to be trying to influence and radicalise the youths through encouraging extremist views.
The agency also claimed that the accused publicly issued an armed rebellion against a democratically elected government of India and promoted the formation of Caliphate that would be ruled by the Sharia law. The case was passed to the NIA, which replaced the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and led an extensive investigation, as part of which important incriminating evidence was found in digital and physical copies.
Two of the accused as well had weapons, including a semi-automatic pistol with cartridges and a sword, which was taken by investigators during the searches. The agency claimed that it carefully tracked the digital footprints, and this worked further against the suspects.
The inquiry found that the active dissemination of AQIS propaganda videos on social media was done by Shama Parveen, a Bengaluru resident in Karnataka, in addition to being an active member of radical extremist online forums that increased radical content after the Pahalgam attack and after Operation Sindoor.
The NIA claimed that the case is still in further action.
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