'Lashkar-e-Taiba recruiting Assamese youths to spread terror'

Guwahati, Oct 3 (IANS) Assamese youths are being recruited by Pakistan-based militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to carry out terror strikes in India, police said Friday.

'We have reports of youths from upper Assam (eastern region) being recruited by the Lashkar-e-Taiba for spreading terror,' Khagen Sharma, chief of the Intelligence wing of the Assam Police, told IANS.

'The numbers of such recruits may not be large, but the trend is worrying,' he added.

The official, however, said the recruitments were not done in an organised way with youths from the state indoctrinated randomly.

LeT is a Pakistan-based terror outfit that is banned in India and in other parts of the world, including in Pakistan since 2002.

The LeT's professed ideology goes beyond merely challenging India's sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir. It also seeks Islamic rule over all parts of India.

Further, the outfit seeks to bring about a union of all Muslim majority regions in countries that surround Pakistan.

'Apart from the LeT, there are trained youths from Assam in groups like the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen-al-Islami and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HuJI) although these Assamese operatives are not present in Assam and working elsewhere,' Sharma said.

Last week, army soldiers foiled a major terror strike in Assam's main city of Guwahati by killing seven HuJI terrorists during a gun battle in the western district of Dhubri, bordering Bangladesh.

A defence statement then said the HuJI terrorists from Bangladesh were on their way to Guwahati through Dhubri to carry out several blasts when the encounter took place.

Dhubri district borders Bangladesh and militants are known to enter India from the adjoining country, taking advantage of the unfenced border and poorly patrolled rivers that form the border in many places.

The HuJI is now suspected of triggering the serial explosions in Tripura's capital Agartala Wednesday.

'The northeast is becoming vulnerable to cross border terror groups mainly due to the proximity of the border with Bangladesh,' a Tripura police official said.