India: HuT Ban And Containing Radicalization – Analysis

On October 10, 2024, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), declaring it a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). According to UMHA, the group was promoting jihad and terrorist activities to undermine democratically elected governments, and to create an Islamic state and Caliphate in India and globally. UMHA also stated in the notification that HuT targets gullible youth to radicalise and motivate them to join the Islamic State (IS) and raise funds for terrorist activities. Further, the UMHA notification added that the organisation used social media platforms and secure applications, and also conducted Dawah meetings to promote its extremist ideology and terrorism.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 31 HuT operatives/associates have been arrested from across India in 2024 alone (data till October 20, 2024). Some of the arrests include:

October 8: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested HuT operative Faizul Rahman from Chennai District in Tamil Nadu. Rahman was identified as a Nakib/ State Amir of HuT in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and was the seventh accused to be arrested in case number RC02/2024/NIA/CHE, related to a conspiracy involving Hameed Hussain and others to spread disaffection and secessionism, and promoting the HuT ideology in India. NIA also revealed that Rahman was seeking military assistance from Pakistan to ‘liberate Kashmir’.

August 30: NIA arrested a key accused, Aziz Ahamed aka Aziz Ahmed aka Jaleel Aziz Ahmed, in the Tamil Nadu HuT case involving attempts to radicalise youth and establish an Islamic Caliphate in India. Ahmed was picked up from Bengaluru International Airport in Karnataka. NIA investigations revealed that he had conducted secret Bay’ahs (oaths of loyalty), where gullible youth were committed to the HuT ideology, and sought military assistance from forces inimical to India to achieve its goal. Ahmed was found to be one of the chief initiators for the conduct of Bay’ahs.

June 30: NIA arrested two operatives of HuT, identified as Abdul Rehman aka Abdul Rahman and Mujibur Rehman aka Mujibur Rahman Altham Sahib, from Thanjavur District in Tamil Nadu after searches at 10 locations in five Districts of Tamil Nadu. The search led to the seizure of digital devices (mobile phones, Laptop, SIM cards and memory cards) and other incriminating documents (books and printouts) containing material on HuT, Khilafa, Islamic State (IS), as well as the proposed Khilafa government and its funding structures.

May 24: A team of Police personnel from the Cyber Crime Wing of the Central Crime Police arrested the ‘chief coordinator’ of HuT, Hameed Hussain (an engineering graduate), Ahmed Mansoor and his brother Abdul Rehman, from Chennai in Tamil Nadu. Police said that Hussain had been uploading videos on social media on Caliphate rule and against the democratic election process.

May 25: Based on intelligence inputs, the Police launched a search at Tambaram in Chelganpattu District and north Chennai, and apprehended HuT sympathisers H. Mohamed Maurice, Kadar Nawaz Sharif aka Javid and Ahmed Ali, all associated with the three men who had been previously arrested on May 24. All the six accused are natives of the Chennai District of Tamil Nadu.

HuT, also known as the Party of Liberation, is a transnational Islamist movement founded by Palestinian Taqiuddin al-Nabhani al-Filastyni in 1953 in Jerusalem. It is considered an international Islamist political organisation with ideologies and affiliations with jihadist, pan-Islamist, Salafi and Sunni groups that share a common and principal objective of establishing a global Islamic Caliphate. HuT emphasises the unification of the Islamic world under a single Caliphate, rejecting all Western ideology and influence, and is strongly committed to the destruction and subversion of democracy. Nabhani drafted a proposed ‘constitution’ for the Caliphate. HuT operates in at least 32 countries worldwide across the Middle East, North Africa, North America and Europe, including the United Kingdom (UK), United States of America (USA), Canada and Australia. Its headquarters are located in Lebanon and the group is banned in several countries, including Germany, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several Central Asian and Arab countries. Austria banned all symbols associated with the group in May 2021. On January 15, 2024, the Home Secretary of the UK, James Cleverly, placed an order before the UK Parliament to proscribe HuT under the Terrorism Act 2000, which was approved, proscribing the organisation as a terrorist group, on January 19, 2024.

According to inputs, HuT has been covertly active in India since around 2010, with a strong presence in the national capital, New Delhi, mainly among students. According to HuT’s website, its ‘India chapter’ organised a demonstration in June 2010, against Israel’s alleged atrocities, at Batla House, New Delhi, which was attended by about 1,000 people. However, with the arrest of two HuT operatives, Ahmed Abdul Cader and Irfan Nasir by NIA from Ramanathapuram District in Tamil Nadu and Frazer Town in Bengaluru, Karnataka, respectively, on October 7, 2020, its presence was exposed. Cader and Nasir were arrested as suspected terrorists of an IS module in Bengaluru, which was allegedly involved in radicalisation of youth and funding their travel to Syria to join the IS there.

The arrests of HuT operatives have mainly been concentrated in Central and Southern Indian states, including Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

HuT has been involved in various conspiracies to orchestrate terrorist attacks. Significantly, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) disclosed on January 15, 2016, that the group was conspiring to carry out terrorist strikes at 23 locations across India on January 23, 2016, and, in another case, NIA lodged an FIR on June 4, 2023, in connection with the crackdown on the terror group on May 9, 2023, where 16 HuT operatives were arrested – 11 in Bhopal and Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh; and five in Hyderabad, Telangana. The FIR also mentioned that the group was planning to attack various religious leaders and places, specifically those linked to Hinduism, as well as crowded places, to create terror among “non-believers” or those opposed to Islamic rule in India. Additionally, the FIR also added that the terrorist group was procuring a cache of arms, ammunition and explosives, to execute the attacks.

Explaining the organisation’s tactics after the arrest of HuT ‘chief coordinator’ Hameed Hussain on May 24, 2024, an NIA spokesperson observed,

As an organisation, they kept their activities secret to avoid being caught, added like-minded people in their group and organised training camps clandestinely. Their preparations included training in arms-shooting and commando tactics to their group members. Their plans and tactics extended to attacks on police personnel and targeting individuals of different communities. This dangerous intent was aimed to threaten the unity, integrity, security, and sovereignty of India, with the explicit goal of striking terror among the people.

Simultaneously, HuT ‘leaders’ preach and inseminate Islamist extremist campaigns and an anti-India discourse to radicalise gullible youths, through various social media outlets. In fact, HuT activities in southern India came to light with social media posts of an accused, Mohammed Iqbal, about Islamic State (IS), inciting Indian Muslims to unleash violence against Hindus. Similarly, in an NIA chargesheet filed on March 14, 2022, in the Madurai Iqbal HuT case (RC08/2021/NIA/DLI), NIA revealed that Ziyavudeen Baqavi, HuT’s ‘chief recruiter’ in Thanjavur, Madurai, Erode and Salem districts of Tamil Nadu, and the Karaikal district of Puducherry, and another accused, Bava Bahrudeen aka Mannai Bava, were conspiring to establish new cells in various districts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala through social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, etc., to recruit youth. HuT operatives also used encrypted web applications such as Rocket Chat and Threema for communication and to listen to Islamist extremist preachings.

The most recent arrest of Faizul Rahman, the HuT Amir in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, on October 8, 2024, by NIA revealed that the accused and his associates were using social media handles to spread HuT’s extremist propaganda. This was disseminated to their followers by the organisation’s ‘central media office’, through secret/encrypted communication platforms.

Interestingly, HuT has infiltrated several educational and vocational institutions in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, as was discovered after the arrest of its operatives during a crackdown in May 2023. The arrested operatives included highly skilled professionals, such as a dentist, a cloud services engineer, and a pharmaceutical biotechnology lecturer. Similarly, the ‘chief coordinator’ of HuT, Hameed Hussain, holds a doctorate in Mechanical engineering.

Indian Intelligence agencies in India submitted a report to and alerted the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) under UMHA on October 8, 2024, that, with the escalation of the West Asian Crisis, there is an increasing trend of online Islamist radicalisation in India. UMHA’s decision to declare HuT a terrorist organisation is, consequently, a significant step to curb the spread of Islamist radicalisation in India and to deter potential terrorist mobilisation and attacks.