TerrorismISIS urges Indian Muslims to avenge killing of Muslims

Kashmiri lawmaker Sheikh Abdul Rashid after an attack by activists from hardline group Hindu Sena // Source: theconversation.com

ISIS, in a surprising move, has appealed to India’s Muslim minority, calling on them to avenge the deaths of Muslims killed during riots in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat.

Only a handful of India’s 160 million Muslims have joined ISIS. Indian leaders has stressed that the reason is the strength of the country’s secular democracy.

Haaretz reports that in a video monitored by the intelligence group SITE, ISIS mocked Indian Muslims living in harmony with Hindus who worship cows, trees, and the sun, and urged them to travel to ISIS-held territories in the “Caliphate.”

“In this land you get to have hatred for the kuffar. In this land you get to perform jihad,” said an Indian fighter who is identified as Abu Salman al-Hindi, operating in the Syrian province of Homs.

“In this land your religion is safe. In this land Allah’s Law is the highest. In this land you have nothing that stops you from doing good deeds, from doing da’wah, from preaching Islam. In this land your life, your honour, your property is protected.”

Another fighter then says ISIS will come to India to liberate Muslims and avenge the violence perpetrated against them in 2002 in the western state of Gujarat as well Kashmir and the destruction of a mosque by Hindu zealots in 1992.

“We will come back, with the sword, to free you, to avenge Babri mosque, Gujarat, Kashmir,” the fighter says. More than 1,000 people were killed in Gujarat. Most of them were Muslims, attacked by Hindu mobs in retaliation for the burning of Hindus in a train.

Haaretznotes that Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat at the time and faced allegations that he was deliberately slow to take action to stop the bloodshed. A Supreme Court-ordered investigation has concluded there was no case against him.