What is Islamic State's Voice of Hind propaganda magazine, seeking to spread terror in India?

National Investigation Agency (NIA) raids on Wednesday at two locations have once again shone the spotlight on ISIS’ Voice of Hind magazine. Basit Kalam Siddiqui (24), a resident of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested in a case related to a conspiracy by the proscribed terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to radicalise and recruit youngsters to wage violent jihad against the Indian State by carrying out acts of terrorist violence, a spokesperson of the federal agency said. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had registered the case suo motu on 29 June last year under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. But what ISIS’ Voice of Hind? Who is behind it? Let’s take a closer look: It was in early 2020 that the Islamic State released its propaganda magazine entitled Voice of Hind or Sawt-al Hind that focused on India, as per SpecialEurAsia.com. ISIS’ goal behind the propaganda magazine, which was first published in February 2020, which urges Indian Muslims to rise up against the Indian government, is to serve as a recruiting tool. As per the website, the terror group is increasingly focusing on India in hopes of exploiting communal tensions and perceived irreconcilable differences between Hindus and Muslims. The magazine’s inaugural edition was launched in February 2020 by the Al Qitaal Media Center in English, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali, as per ORF.  

Its first article was entitled So where are you going? A call to Muslims of India.

“The paradise whose width is the extent of heavens and the earth. He is calling you to the ark before the destructive flood of Allah’s wrath descends,” the magazine stated in its inaugural edition, as per SpecialEurAsia.com. It further stated, “What has deluded you, o Muslims of India from your lord, the most noble? The one who created you, fashioned you and gave you due proportion. The one who brought you forth from your mothers’ wombs after having fashioned you in whichever way he pleased?” As per ORF, as riots raged in Delhi over the Citizenship Amendment Act, the magazine called on Indian Muslims to join its jihad. The magazine, which is published monthly, has in every subsequent issue suggested ways for ISIS supporters to carry out attacks while national security and law enforcement agencies are busy with the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, as per ORF. As per Policy Perspectives Foundation, in its fifth issue, the magazine urged Muslims to spread COVID. “COVID 19 has plagued the disbelievers and it is time to make it worse… believers can wreak havoc on disbelievers by spreading the disease among them so that they are forced to bow down before Allah’s rule before they are wiped out from the earth,” the magazine wrote. It urged “every brother and sister, even children, can contribute to Allah’s cause by becoming the carriers of this disease and striking the colonies of the disbelievers, wherever they find them” and that “no disease can harm even a hair of a believer”. The magazine continues to be circulated online, India Today reported_._ [caption id=“attachment_10646211” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Representational Image: ANI[/caption] Voice of Hind is being disseminated through an intricate network of pseudonymous online entities and channels using VPNs to hide their real identities, according to Moneycontrol. The magazine has published pieces on the hijab row and the Gorakhpur temple attack, as per the news outlet.

It also appealed to Muslims to ‘pick up weapons and kill’ those that object to the practices of Islam.

As per India Today, the Voice of Hind in April published as its cover a photo of Indian boys who recently joined the organisation. Minds behind ISIS magazine As per The Hindu, a 28-year-old Islamic State sympathiser from Hyderabad, lodged in Tihar jail, was one of the minds behind the magazine. Abdullah Basith alias Khattab Bhai, from Gulshan Iqbal Colony in the old city’s Chandrayangutta, helped a Kashmiri couple, Jahanzaib Sami (36) and Hina Bashir Beigh (39), the operatives of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), prepare the magazine – from inside the prison no less. NIA officials later found soft copies of the magazine in a smart phone reportedly seized from Basith, as per the report. Basith, an engineering drop-out, was nabbed by the NIA in August 2018. He was in touch with Huzaifa-al-Bakistani, a highly-trained Pakistani national and key IS recruiter and mastermind of the banned outfit’s activities in Jammu and Kashmir. Basith in June 2018 went to New Delhi to make a deal for two AK-47 assault rifles with a Kashmiri youth, as per the report. The Print quoted security sources as saying that the Voice of Hind was designed and put together by young graduates and translators in a “call centre like setup” in Karachi and Islamabad. Investigators initially thought it was being published and circulated from Afghanistan until a south Kashmir link  turned up, a source told the outlet. “Till now it was understood that the magazine was being made and circulated from Afghanistan, but the creators were traced to south Kashmir. During the investigation, it was found that the material was being sourced from across counties and only sent to Afghanistan. The magazine, however, was being put together in Pakistan,” the source added. “These are call centre like setups where men and women, who are graduates and know the English language, are working on designing this magazine. These people are also aware of how the digital space works and how the magazine can be circulated for mass outreach,” the source said.

The source added that these people are being paid between Rs 15,000 and 20,000.

According to _The Print, t_he NIA in August arrested Jufri Jawhar Damudi from Karnataka’s Bhatkal for creating multiple pseudo-IDs on different chat platforms and translating Voice of Hind into south Indian languages. “Damudi was just one of the resources who was hired for translating the content of the magazine in different languages so that it could reach more people. He was also in touch with Umar, who was arrested from Anantnag and was coordinating on the content,” the source told the outlet. As per News18, Islamic State Jammu and Kashmir’s chief Umar Nisar Bhat aka Qasim Khorasani was talking about spreading ISIS propaganda in India by recruiting and radicalising “ground soldiers” through the Voice of Hind. Nisar, a key link between the ISIS operatives in India and Afghan-Pak-based ISIS handlers, was arrested in July in an NIA raid. In March, the NIA filed the a chargesheet against two ISIS terrorists Afshan Parvaiz Jarabi and Tawheed Latief Sofi, both residents of Srinagar, before a Special Court in the National Capital under various sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. The NIA said that Sofi was involved in content editing and poster creation for ISIS propaganda magazine Voice of Hind and had also carried out recees at Hindu temples, government buildings including police stations to carry out subversive acts. NIA raids galore The NIA in October carried out multiple raids in the Valley related to the magazine. The NIA in August raided multiple locations across six states in the country in connection with the digital Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) propaganda magazine and detained 50 people. The agency conducted searches at Bhopal and Raisen districts in Madhya Pradesh; Bharuch, Surat, Navsari and Ahmedabad districts in Gujarat. Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra said central agencies interrogated two men from Bhopal and Raisen who were allegedly involved in creating groups in the name of IS on social media, news agency PTI reported. Apart from this, NIA carried out raids in Arariya district in Bihar, Bhatkal and Tumkur City districts in Karnataka, Kolhapur and Nanded districts in Maharashtra and Deoband districts in Uttar Pradesh. The searches conducted led to the seizure of incriminating documents and material. The probe agency also conducted raids at multiple locations in Bihar including Nalanda district on Thursday in connection with the Phulwari Sharif case having links with the extremist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI). ‘Siddique actively involved’ The NIA said it was found during investigation that Siddiqui was actively involved in radicalisation and recruitment of youth on behalf of ISIS. Siddiqui was in touch with ISIS handlers and was indulging in content creation, publication and dissemination of ISIS propaganda through the magazine ‘Voice of Khurasan’. On the direction of his ISIS handlers based out of Afghanistan, Siddiqui was trying to fabricate an explosive, ‘Black Powder’, and gaining knowledge on the use of other lethal chemical substances to be used for the fabrication of IEDs. He was also imparting training on making explosives through several Telegram groups he operated, for carrying out terrorist attacks against vital installations and civilian population. During the searches, the NIA seized incriminating articles such as hand-written notes related to fabrication of IEDs and explosive substances, mobile phones, laptops, pen drives etc. The NIA had earlier filed one main and one supplementary chargesheet in the NIA special court in Delhi in connection with this case against six accused persons. With inputs from agencies

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