Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 27: The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) outfit, whose connections with indigenous militant outfit Indian Mujahideen were well known, has been using the IM cadre to recruit youths from border areas of Nepal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar into the militancy, according to specific Intelligence inputs gathered by the Intelligence agencies.
The inputs revealed that the LeT, which has of late developed connections with top leadership of Indian Mujahideen, has been targeting the youths living in the border areas of Nepal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where economic conditions of the people was not good and most of the youths were unemployed with no work in hand.
The youths of Nepal putting up in the areas bordering Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have good links on the Indian side and they were being targeted by the Indian Mujahideen along with the youths of two Indian States, bordering Nepal, sources said, adding the Intelligence agencies swung into action after getting the inputs that the Indian Mujahideen was not only targeting these youths for itself but for also the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) outfit, which was operating in Kashmir.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) and other Intelligence agencies of the country have sounded Uttar Pradesh and Bihar police apart from Seema Shastra Bal (SSB), a para-military force, which operates along Indo-Nepal border to maintain strict surveillance on the youth and activities of the Indian Mujahideen to ensure that the militant outfit didn’t manage to exploit economic conditions of the youths to rope them into the militancy.
The Indian Mujahideen has strong network in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra apart from some other States. Though no direct link has so far been exposed between Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Toiba militant outfit and Indian based Indian Mujahideen, there had been specific reports that leadership of the two outfits was in touch with each other and drive by the Indian Mujahideen this time was aimed at benefiting the Lashkar-e-Toiba, which was running short of cadre.
In fact, the Intelligence inputs clearly suggested that the youths from Nepal border were being targeted for the LeT to operate in different parts of the country including Jammu and Kashmir.
The LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen outfits have severely run short of cadre and weaponry. With infiltration of militants from Pakistan extremely becoming difficult from the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir due to strict surveillance maintained by Army and BSF and fencing of the border, the militant outfits were getting desperate to increase their strength as even local youths of J&K were not ready to join the militancy.
Sources said this has left the LeT outfit to take the support of Indian Mujahideen to get some cadre recruited for the outfit but their plan was intercepted well in time by the Central agencies. With alert sounded in the border areas of Nepal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the IM would find it difficult to recruit the youth. The SSB has also been maintaining a very high alert along Indi-Nepal border, they added.
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