Misguided Youths Or Trained Terrorists?

- Ridhima Malhotra

Celebrated poet dramatist, TS Eliot began his masterpiece The Waste Land with an oftquoted sordid note “April is the cruelest month” but concluded with ‘Shantih’ to give to the world hope for peace! As a co-incidence, the globe has been shaken by series of terror attacks shattering the peace. Though fundamentalists never watch for time day or month, April has seen a stepped up terror activity. And it has not ebbed. Recently, the world was stunned by a series of terror attacks across the globe during the Islamic holy month of Ramadhan, when the devout pray for peace and well-being, as religious fanatics unleashed terror on innocents in Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Indians watched with horror when neighbouring Bangladesh was shaken by seven armed youths who stormed a cafe in Dhaka’s diplomatic enclave. Twenty hostages, most of them foreigners, were tortured with machetes and killed after a 12-hour siege.

The militants, avowing allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), were barely out of their teens. When their pictures appeared — grinning young men sporting slight beards and keffiyehs, holding a Kalashnikov look-alike and standing in front of black ISIL flags — they looked as innocent as teenagers in bandanas holding guitars instead of guns. They were from unorthodox affluent families and had studied in elite schools. In fact, just a few months back they could have been sitting at the same cafe enjoying croissants and coffee. They were happy-go-lucky boys before being blinded by religious fundamentalism. The repulsive attack points to the dangerously rising influence of the iniquitous ISIL in different parts of the world, including India and its neighbours. A number of educated young people leading normal lives are being lured by the promise of an utopian caliphate where the rule of the Prophet will be supreme. T