20 engineers were arrested in India last year for having links with ISIS (Representational Image)
The largest number of cases linked to the dreaded ISIS was recorded last year by India's top anti-terror agency. The terror suspects include 20 engineers, the National Investigation Agency claimed today.
What the agency calls a worrying trend is that the average profile of these terror suspects is that of young, educated middle-class men with access to the internet.
Almost 80 per cent of the alleged ISIS sympathizers went to school, according to data released by the agency, which filed a dozen ISIS-related cases in 2016.
Out of 52 people named as accused, 12 are diploma holders and three post-graduates. More than half of them are below 25.
"They are all young professionals and students with access to the internet and many come from middle class homes," said an officer.
Yet, it has emerged during questioning that half of the suspects believe in the Ahl i Hadith, which is considered one of the most rigid Islamic schools of thought in the country.
As many as 10 suspects are just from Hyderabad which, along with Bengaluru, are the tech hubs of the country.
The most arrests were from Maharashtra - a dozen. Kerala, Karnataka and Bengal come next.
Nine of the suspects are from the upper middle class.
The agency has only managed to arrest 35 suspects; the rest are still missing.
The growing number of ISIS sympathizers in the country has been a cause for concern for security and intelligence agencies in the country, though none of the suspects have been successful in executing any act of terror till now.