New Delhi: An exponential rise in social media activity over the past month by Pakistan and PoK-based terrorist handles, aimed at glamourising terrorism and secessionism in J&K, as well as threatening anti-India posts, is being viewed by Indian security agencies as "a fresh bid by Pakistan-backed terror outfits to revive local terror recruitment in J&K", according to intelligence sources. An analysis by the agencies here of anti-India activities across "identified" Pakistan and PoK-based terror-linked accounts on platforms like Facebook, X, Telegram, Dark Web etc, revealed over 2,000 'posts of concern' in the past one month alone (Oct-Nov), as against 89 during the corresponding period of 2023. This translates to a more than 22-fold rise.
Of the nearly 2,016 objectionable posts, more that 130 each were terrorism-specific and anti-India rants, 33 backed separatism and secessionism, and 310 were in the nature of threats to infrastructure and public places like schools etc, TOI has learnt. A senior officer in the central security establishment told TOI that the social media route to influence and exploit impressional minds of J&K youths and radicalise them for anti-national activities - something that had seen young Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani turn into a terror icon before he was killed in 2016 - follows a sharp decline in the number of local Kashmiris joining terrorist outfits. Just four locals in J&K - two from Shopian and one each from Srinagar and Tral - were re.