Suraj
defencesuraj77@gmail.com
Terrorism is no longer confined to gunmen and sleeper cells. It has adapted to changing social realities shaped by technology and governance. Expanded access to education, information, and digital networks has altered the terrain of radicalisation, allowing extremist ideologies to circulate through less visible but more socially embedded pathways. This shift has produced a disturbing mutation: white-collar terrorism, where educated professionals misuse institutional trust, professional access, and social credibility to enable or legitimise violence. Low in visibility but high in impact, this form of terrorism corrodes the state from within.
Public attention to this trend sharpened after investigations into the 2025 Red Fort blast in Delhi, which killed fifteen innocent civilians and exposed a Faridabad based terror module involving educated facilitators. The case challenged the assumption that terrorism is driven primarily by illiteracy or marginalisation. Yet, in Jammu and Kashmir, the involvement of educated individuals in militancy is not a recent phenomenon.
From the early years of insurgency, several figures associated with organisations such as the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), and other militants like Maqbool Bhatt, Yasin Malik, Burhan Wani names that still echo in security briefings were notably well educated. This demonstrates that access to modern institutions does not automatically insulate individuals from extremist ideas; in some cases, it can even enable them.
Over the past three decades, sustained counter terror operations, financial crackdowns, and intelligence led by Jammu & Kashmir Police particularly against networks backed by Pakistan’s ISI have degraded the conventional militant ecosystem. Leadership attrition, disrupted funding channels, and tighter surveillance have increased the costs of overt violence on part of terrorist organisations.
As traditional terror spaces are squeezed and pressure increases, Pakistan sponsored terror networks mutate rather than disappear. Sophisticated adaptation involves cultivating a new layer of over-ground workers marked by “hybrid terrorists”, increasingly drawn from white-collar professions such as healthcare, education, engineering, and administration. Groomed ideologically and psychologically, these individuals often lack criminal antecedents, allowing them to evade traditional profiling and operate within everyday professional spaces. This is a calculated choice when armed mobilisation becomes costly, infiltration in the institutions becomes strategic. White-collar terrorism works because insiders know the system. They are trusted figures, and this social credibility is exploited to pass move money, and support terror groups without drawing attention.
The concern deepens when Government employees themselves are implicated. Official records indicate that over 84 Jammu and Kashmir government employees were dismissed from service since 2020 for links with extremist or separatist activities, signalling the presence of rogue elements within public institutions. White-collar terror mirrors the game Among Us, where impostors hide among crewmates, pretending to work, white-collar terrorists do the same by blending among trusted professionals while quietly aiding terror networks. In a way, financial incentive combine with ideological commitment, reinforcing sustained participation. Clearly, we need continuous, rather than episodic, vigilance and surveillance. Regular verification of employees’ criminal antecedents by police and intelligence agencies must become routine. Equally important is monitoring patterns of online behaviour that indicate radicalisation and also ensuring to track covert coordination through specialised and technologically equipped units.
The rise of white-collar terrorism does not signal the end of violence but its strategic reconfiguration. It reflects adaptation by terror networks under pressure rather than ideological retreat. Addressing this threat requires moving beyond a battlefield centric understanding of counterterrorism towards recognising institutional vulnerability, radicalisation, and the misuse of professional position.
It should not come as a surprise that when white-collar terrorism takes root in urban settings, it finds its most enabling environment there. Cities concentrate institutions, professional networks, digital infrastructure, and a degree of anonymity that can be exploited. Universities, hospitals, offices, and bureaucratic spaces built on public trust can inadvertently become sites of ideological subversion. Urban space, therefore, is not merely the backdrop of white-collar extremism but one of its suitable conditions. Given these realities, the likelihood of similar cases emerging in the future should not be ruled out. Strengthening the security grid and resilience of urban institutions must therefore become a priority.
In a way, white-collar terrorists prove more dangerous as the acts as an intellectual and logistical backbone of terror networks and their ability to remain undetected constitutes their primary success. While traditional terrorists have limited gestation periods, these white-collar operatives function as sleeper cells, quietly preparing ground for long-term subversion. Since traitors hide in our midst, common citizens must stay aware and adopt simple precautionary checks: ensuring proper documentation for used vehicle transactions; requiring mobile dealers to verify buyer’s identities for phones and SIMs; municipal waste inspections; covering sensitive entry/exits with CCTV; and flagging alarming social media content to Police. Pakistan-sponsored terror now employs a “master of terrain” strategy deploying foreign terrorists familiar with local geography while using professional experts as white-collar facilitators.
The real challenge is whether society and institutions can detect extremist subversion before it manifests as harm. Acts of violence create immediate shock, but ideological sympathy for radical networks spreads quietly, often beyond the reach of conventional security framework. Public awareness and timely reporting of warning signs must become part of national security. Citizens can play a supportive role by acting as extended eyes and ears of security agencies by staying alert in workplaces and institutions to identify patterns like sudden behavioural shifts, rigid ideologies, or repeated violence justifications. Early recognition, action, and reporting such signals can help prevent harm to public trust and national security.
(The author is MA, Defence and Strategic Studies.)
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