New Delhi, Oct 30 — Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has expanded its tactical focus toward south India on the recommendation of the Kashmir Study Group (KSG), seeking to exploit pre-existing radicalised networks in states like Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu as security grids tighten across north India, including Jammu and Kashmir, intelligence officials have revealed.
The ISI’s internal study group KSG was set up after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 and is now led by high-ranking military officers in the ranks of a Brigadier and a Colonel.
Initially tasked with advising the Pakistani establishment on Jammu and Kashmir, its brief is said to have expanded over the past two to three years to cover other parts of India.
In its latest assessment, the KSG is understood to have advised the ISI to explore recruiting radicalised individuals in southern states.
An official said the proposed shift followed increased security pressure in Jammu and Kashmir and disruption of networks in northern India.
Security agencies in Jammu and Kashmir remain on high alert, making it harder for terror groups to operate, the official said.
“The KSG had earlier recommended proxy organisations, including The Resistance Front (TRF), the People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), Kashmir Tigers and Allah Tigers. These groups were created to provide both the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) with a degree of deniability,” the official said.
In the north, after the Red Fort car bomb blast in Delhi last year, the ISI, on the advice of the KSG, recruited Shahzad Bhatti to carry out recruitments through social media. This network, which was busted recently, recruited across North India.
Those recruited were assigned tasks including drug smuggling, installing surveillance cameras at sensitive locations, and carrying out targeted attacks, the official said.
The recruits were paid to smuggle drugs, install surveillance cameras at sensitive and crowded locations, and also carry out hit jobs.
Another official said that with these modules failing, the KSG has advised the ISI to shift its focus to south India.
“Shifting attention to the south could divert the focus of security agencies from Jammu and Kashmir and northern India. It would also give the ISI time to review and reorganise its operations in those regions,” the official said.
An Intelligence Bureau official said Al Qaeda and the Islamic State had, over the years, sought to expand their influence in parts of southern India, particularly Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
“Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been hot hubs for these terror outfits. The radicalisation is so deep in south India that the KSG felt that it would be fit to tap these individuals and get them to carry out terror acts for the ISI,” the official said.
The ISI has agents in several countries and has relied on overseas contacts for recruitment in India, officials alleged. They said Pakistan-based handlers sought to avoid direct contact with recruits, making it harder for investigators to establish links to the Pakistani establishment.
Officials said such precautions had become more important after Operation Sindoor, when India declared that future acts of terrorism would be treated as acts of war, not merely as cross-border terrorism. They said this had increased pressure on Pakistan-based networks to conceal their involvement.
The KSG, during recent interactions with the top brass of the ISI, has advised tapping into the radicalised youth in the Southern states. There is not much for the ISI agents to do where radicalisation is concerned, as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State have already undertaken that exercise.
This means the ISI could tap into the already existing pool of talent and then pick them up for subversive activities, officials say.
The very fact that this pool from south India has exposure to radical Islamic ideologies in West Asia makes them easy prey for the ISI’s recruiters.
This change in strategy is not only a stop-gap arrangement until the ISI recalibrates in north India and Jammu and Kashmir. This is also a part of the strategy whereby the Pakistan spy agency taps into radicalised individuals across the country in a bid to run a pan-India operation.
Officials explain that those radicalised by the Islamic State or Al Qaeda do not have an exclusive affiliation.
These persons have been radicalised by violent ideology and not based on a particular group. The idea of both these groups was to create a completely radicalised society, with violent Jihad being the primary goal.
Al Qaeda or the Islamic State would not necessarily oppose the ISI approaching this pool of individuals, as their objective is the destruction of India and they would welcome an ISI intervention in it, another official said.