Recent arrests of three suspected ISIS terrorists with impressive academic qualifications indicate that education has nothing to do with being radicalised or wanting to become terror enablers/terrorists. In fact, Islamist indoctrination of a high-IQ, well-educated person can amplify the terror threat and make the job of security agencies that much harder. Unless the religious indoctrination infrastructure is dismantled, just providing more education opportunities puts the entire nation at risk.

On Monday, October 2, the Delhi Police Special Cell revealed the arrest of a 32-year-old terrorist, Shahnawaz Alam, who had been on the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) list of most-wanted suspects due to his alleged role in a Pune module associated with the banned extremist organization, Islamic State (IS). In a series of raids at various locations in UP, two of his accomplices, identified as Mohammad Rizwan Ashraf and Mohammad Arshad Warsi, were also arrested. According to police reports, these three individuals were conspiring to execute terrorist attacks/explosions in Delhi (specifically at Akshardham) and Ayodhya ahead of the upcoming festival season. Additionally, they had identified Chabad House in Mumbai as one of their potential targets – all this under the directives of overseas-based handlers affiliated with the Islamic State (IS).

Who are these educated terrorists?

Shahnawaz Alam (31), considered the most wanted among them, came from a middle-class family in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, where his father served as a government school teacher. Despite his modest background, Shahnawaz received an education that should have paved the way for a promising future.

Clearing the AIEEE, he secured admission to the prestigious NIT Visveswaraya in Nagpur, earning a BTech in Mining Engineering in 2016. Following graduation, he moved to Delhi to prepare for the SSC examination. During this period, Shahnawaz attended lectures by Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) at Shaheen Bagh, and it was here that he became influenced by ISIS ideology, according to police sources.

The second ISIS operative, Md. Arshad also came from a middle-class family in Garhwa, Jharkhand, with his father working as a government school teacher. Arshad pursued his education at Aligarh Muslim University, earning a BTech in Mechanical Engineering. He later moved to Delhi, where he studied at Jamia Millia University, completed an MBA, and pursued a PhD in Islamic Principles in Management.

The third operative, Md. Rizwan Ashraf had a somewhat different background. Born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, he received his initial education in Uttar Pradesh before pursuing an Alimiyat in Arabic in 2009. Ashraf also held a BTech in Information Technology, which he completed in Noida in 2017.

These cases are not isolated; there are numerous examples of “highly educated” Islamic terrorists involved in extremist activities. Here is a list:

• Yasin Bhatkal alias Syed Ahmed Zarar Siddibappa, co-founder and leader of the Indian Mujahideen, possessed an engineering degree. Yasin played a prominent role in several significant acts of terrorism, including the 2010 Pune bombing, the 2010 Bangalore stadium bombing, the 2011 Mumbai bombings, the 2012 Pune bombings, and the 2013 Hyderabad blasts.
• Mohammed Asghar Peerbhoy, who played a significant role in the Indian Mujahideen’s media activities, was a principal software engineer at Yahoo. Peerbhoy, 31, led a “media terror cell” composed of highly educated and tech-savvy individuals from respectable families. They crafted emails sent just before or after the bombings in Delhi, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), and Jaipur (Rajasthan). 
• Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, held multiple master’s degrees. Saeed possesses two master’s degrees from the University of Punjab and a specialisation in Islamic Studies and Arabic Language from King Saud University.
• Yakub Memon, educated in an English-medium school, graduated with a degree in commerce and became a chartered accountant; he was involved in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts – he was the accused number 1. 
• Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, studied economics and business administration at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. Some reports suggest he earned a civil engineering degree in 1979 and attended an English-language course in Oxford, England, in 1971.
• Ahmad Murtaza Abbasi, an IIT graduate in chemical engineering, was involved in the Gorakhnath temple attack.

Here are some more:

These are just a few educated Islamic terrorists whose academic qualifications are known. Nevertheless, these qualifications starkly contrast with their involvement in terrorism. 

In the United Kingdom, MI5 revealed that two-thirds of British terror suspects had middle-class profiles. This pattern challenges the whole notion that education alone can deter individuals from the path of extremism. Instead, it underscores the role of radicalisation and a distorted interpretation of religion in driving well-educated individuals toward terrorism.

Malala’s quote is contradictory to reality

Malala Yousafzai’s quote, “With education, you can kill terrorism,” contradicts what these terrorists have done – they were highly educated yet chose the path that no sane human would take. Maybe Malala would want to revisit the quote she said and also make an effort to understand why educated individuals were engaging in acts of terror. Whether she will acknowledge the role of their religious texts is a different question.