File Photo of Islamic State terrorists
13 Indians, all of them Muslim and in most their early twenties traveled abroad in the last 18 months to join the Islamic State, and six of them are reported killed, according to government sources.
"Of those alive, our input indicates, only one is in a combat role. The others are in ancillary roles like cooks, drivers and helpers," a senior official in the Home Ministry told NDTV.
The seven IS recruits who are alive include two from a group of four that left the country in May from Kalyan in Maharashtra, and three young Indian men who lived in Australia, Oman and Singapore.
Over the weekend, the government called a meeting of top bureaucrats and police chiefs from 10 states, to discuss the growing threat of the IS, the Sunni terror group that seeks to establish a caliphate and now controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Recently, there was a
report that an IS recruitment document found in Pakistan highlights an attack in India as a major goal with the terror group predicting it would trigger an "end of the world" confrontation. Last week, four Indian teachers in Libya were kidnapped by IS militants; two of them have been released. The government says it's working to free the others.
The meeting in Delhi with top officers saw the state of Telangana winning praise for identifying and stopping 20 potential IS recruits from leaving the country.
Uttar Pradesh has not revealed any evidence to suggest that recruitment by the IS is a concern there, though union government sources said the state also appears unwilling to share much information.