New Delhi, Aug 22 Big cars, lavish homes and a lifestyle that one would yearn for has been a selling point for the ISI, when it come to recruitments in India. The ISI-backed recruiters have been told to put out images of themselves posing with luxury cars, lavish homes and expensive clothes in order to rope in youth for terror related activities.
An Intelligence Bureau official said that while scanning the profiles of several youth, it has been found that these persons are unemployed and are looking for shortcuts to lead the lifestyle that the ISI recruits have been showing them.
This is a lifestyle trap that the ISI has been setting for the unemployed youth in India. Such youth fall into the trap and get ready to agree to work for the ISI, the official said.
An official said that while these youth fall for this trap and join terror networks, there is a huge catch behind this. While the recruitments take place by making tall promises, these youth realise that they are trapped when they are not paid much for the task that they have bee asked to perform, the official added.
Another official said that when these youth have asked the recruiters and handlers about the promise that they were made, they are in turn blackmailed. Most of these youth who end up earning paltry amounts continue doing the job as they fear of bing outed. The handlers end up telling these youth that they would be sent to jail as their information and activities will be leaked to the authorities, the official added.
There has also been a targeting youth who are unemployed and frustrated. The ISI’s recruitment desk also has people who understand and read the psychology of a person. Such persons are easy preys for the recruits. These psychologists tell these youth that the only way to overcome their current situation is to enter into the world of crime. They tell them that they can become powerful and also earn a lot of money. This, they are told will earn them the validation and respect from society that they have been looking for.
Shehzad Bhatti, the influencer turned terror recruiter had targeted youth with a criminal background and had promised them that they would be part of large syndicates. This module was recently busted by the Indian agencies with over 250 arrests being made.
Bhatti too had flaunted his lavish lifestyle to lure the youth into his fold. Most of his recruits were those who had a criminal background and were affiliated with criminal activities. Bhatti had promised that they would become big criminals and automatically the money that they earn would be much larger.
The newer recruitment modules that the ISI is setting up focuses more on flaunting lavish lifestyle and tapping into the frustration of the youth.
An official said that many of the youth that the ISI has its eyes on are juveniles. While such persons are more vulnerable when compared to the adults, the ISI is also using a loophole within the Indian law that classifies a juvenile. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2000 under Section 2(12) defines a person who has not completed eighteen years of age as a juvenile. Such persons are not punishable under laws defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or the BNS.
An official said that when it comes to such cases, the agencies need to take a more reformative approach.
Taking the usual approach can well make them turn into bigger criminals in the future. The agencies too work with psychologists to counsel such persons so that in the future they do not fall in traps set by the ISI and its recruiters, said the official.
