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Home ministry strategises on how to counter radicalisation
A home ministry-led initiative to formalise a strategy to counter groups propagating radical ideologies on Saturday pushed for targeting counter-radicalisation efforts right at the college level when the youth are most vulnerable to influence by extremist ideologies.
A home ministry-led initiative to formalise a strategy to counter groups propagating radical ideologies on Saturday pushed for targeting counter-radicalisation efforts right at the college level when the youth are most vulnerable to influence by extremist ideologies.
The meeting chaired by home secretary LC Goyal also backed involvement of community elders and real-time information sharing between different states. It also supported closer monitoring of radical social media platforms but is still nowhere close to setting up its team of tweeters to counter radical groups, on the lines of the US’ Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC).
Backed by President Barack Obama, the CSCC’s seeks to contain the spread of militant Islamist ideology on Twitter and other social media platforms by trying to disrupt the radical narrative with its own version.
Involvement of community elders, monitoring radical social media platforms and real-time sharing of information are a few steps government plans to take to prevent youth getting attracted to radical ideologies. The focus would also be on how to quickly respond to any report of youths planning to join terror groups like IS and how to prevent Indian youths from coming under the sway of extremist doctrines.
DGPs and Home Secretaries or their representatives of a dozen states, including J&K, UP, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Assam, Punjab, West Bengal and Delhi (Commissioner of Police) attended. The ministry had identified around 25 youngsters who were attracted to the idea of the Islamic State and wanted to join the group.
“Attraction towards radical ideology of any religion is a matter of concern. We are in the process of putting in place a robust system to counter radicalisation of Indian youths,” an official said.
