Muhammad Tariq, who was arrested on 6 July, is a terrorist who was spreading the ideology of the Islamic State through various social media platforms, the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Force (UPATS) said. UPATS also said that Tariq was in constant contact with ISIS terrorist Sumaira Banu, who was arrested last month by the Gujarat Police from Porbandar in Gujarat. According to the report, Sumaira was trained in love jihad (grooming jihad), which involves ensnaring non-Muslim girls into forced conversions, recruiting them for terrorist activities, or even raping and killing them.

Tariq was the one who provided such training to the lady terrorist. Gujarat police received information about Tariq of UP from Sumerira’s phone and Gujarat ATS immediately contacted UPATS and the terror suspect was arrested.

During his interrogation, Tariq admitted that he had been spreading ISIS ideas through social media and inciting youth towards terrorism. He always wanted to be a mujahid (one who does jihad). ATS reported that Tariq said he had always been fascinated by Baghdadi’s ‘weapons.’ Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri, commonly known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was an Iraqi terrorist who was the first self-proclaimed modern caliph of the Islamic State from 2014 until his death in 2019.

Baghdadi set himself and two children on fire in October 2019, during the Barisha attack in Syria’s Idlib Province, which was carried out by the United States with President Donald Trump’s assent. His body was then dumped at sea. ISIS declared him dead and replaced him with Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.

During the search conducted by the police, pictures of several ISIS terrorists carrying various weapons were found on Tariq’s phone. ISIS flags, terrorist literature, and notes written in Arabic were also found. A copy of Voice of Khorasan magazine was among the books that the ATS seized during their raid on Sumaira’s home in Surat. She admitted to the police that she was in contact with an ISIS handler and had a strong relationship with Zubair Munshi, a Kashmiri resident who is another accused in this case.

ATS officials said that these Islamic terrorists lured their victims through online games. By playing online games, Tariq connected with youth from nearby areas and different parts of the country. How many young girls from Kerala fell for the jihadi trap remains unknown. We now know that young non-Muslims from Kerala bore the brunt of grooming jihad and many joined ISIS and died in Islamist countries.

Like most terrorists, Tariq is a reserved character who generally stayed at home with little contact with the outside world. His only public contact was his occasional visit to the nearby market to buy essentials. He lived with his father, mother, and family who were government school teachers. His brother worked as a tailor. It was only when he was caught by the police that even the nearby residents came to know that Tariq was spreading ISIS terrorism through social media.

Tariq received instructions from Sumaira to entrap the youth through a Telegram group. The admin of this group is currently on a Hajj journey. But the police assured that all the youths who came in contact with these terror suspects through social media and online gaming apps are under surveillance.

Tariq hails from the Khunipur area of Gorakhpur, according to counter-terrorism forces. It is one of the places where the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) 2019 riots broke out. ATS asserts that many people from Tariq’s locality were active in the said riot.

On 6 June, four terrorists were arrested from Porbandar after destroying an Islamic State module. Tariq’s accomplice Sumaira was one of them. The other three are Ubaid Nasir Mir, Hanan Hayat Shaul and Muhammad Hajim Shah. Sumaira is a native of Surat. The remaining three are from Kashmir.

At the time of their capture, the three Kashmiris were preparing to cross the sea route to the Islamic State with the help of ISIS terrorist Abu Hamza, who allegedly holds their reins. ISKP (Islamic State of Khorasan Province) literature and weapons including knives were recovered from them. After several days of continuous raids, the counter-terrorism forces arrested more terrorists.

According to ATS, the police took many documents, phones, tablets, and sharp objects like knives from the custody of the three Kashmiri youngsters. The ATS claimed in a statement that images and videos of the suspects had been discovered in their cloud storage accounts.

ISKP is an active organization in Afghanistan. All those arrested were its active members and contacts. According to reports, all of them were trying to escape from Porbandar to Afghanistan.

With the arrest of Sumaira, the investigation reached Tariq and he was detained on 6 July. Sumaira was in constant contact with terrorist kingpin Abu Hamza, a native of Iran. Their plan was to enter Iran by sea for terrorist training.

When they were questioned, it came out that their boss, Abu Hamza, had given them the go-ahead to travel to Porbandar and work as laborers on fishing boats. They intended to take one of the fishing boats or a dhow to travel to “pre-determined GPS coordinates that had been provided to them,” according to ATS.

“They had planned to forge passports in Iran and reach Khorasan. They were then to participate in its terrorist activities on behalf of the ISKP in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and achieve martyrdom, after which their pre-recorded statements, photographs, videos and documents were to be used by Handler and the ISKP to publicize their martyrdom,” the ATS said in a statement.

This woman was aiding the spread of the Islamic State in Bharat by training young Muslims in love jihad. This again proves that Love Jihad is a religious propagation project which is being implemented by many Islamic groups with international relations by providing organizational support and financial support.

These latest revelations should come as a tight slap to radical Islamists, liberals and green communists who deny that love jihad even exists.