• Executive Summary: India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested over 180 people in 2023 for involvement in jihadist terror cases, 65 of which were associated specifically with IS, as part of a broader strategy to disrupt IS’s influence in India. 
• In December 2023 alone, the NIA conducted widespread raids across the country, arresting dozens of individuals linked to Islamic State (IS) networks and seizing weapons, explosives, and propaganda materials.

The transnational Islamist political movement Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) has increased its India-centric propaganda. HT is often described as a non-violent extremist group seeking to unite the global Muslim community under one Islamic caliphate. The arrests of several HT operatives from Central and South Indian states, including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, confirmed HT’s shadowy presence in the country. HT is attempting to revive the group’s past pro-Islamic state and anti-India discourses through its preaching campaigns.

Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian businessman originally from Pakistan, was convicted in a US court in 2011. Rana was charged with providing material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan and for conspiring to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus. This followed their publishing of controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed in 2005. In 2013, Rana was sentenced to 14 years in a US prison. [1] Rana, however, was acquitted of a third charge, which had alleged his involvement in the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

ABSTRACT 

In mid-2022, Bangladeshi police stumbled upon a burgeoning Islamist militant conglomerate called Jamaatul-Ansar-fil-Hindal Sharqiya (Assembly of the Helpers in the East of India, or “Jamaatul Ansar”) while investigating youth disappearances in the country. More than 50 youths have reportedly left their homes to join Islamist groups under the pretext of religious migration (hijra) in the last two years (Parthom Alo, September 25, 2022).