Using social media like facebook and other platforms hindus are being recruited, radicalised and trained to take on 'islam' in Western UP. A lawyer Chetna Sharma is doing this openly, these hindu groups are one of many being organized, trained for catastrophic consequences, which the social media trolls are trying to hide to their own peril.
Parminder Arya, Sharma’s close aid and a member of the Hindu Swabhiman Sangh lives here. Arya served in the Indian Army for fifteen years and is now giving military training to young Hindus in his courtyard.
Hrithik is nine, Shubhi is eleven and there are twenty-five to thirty others like them from the age group of nine to thirty who attend a two-hour training every evening. Arya not only trains them in traditional warfare techniques, using knives, swords and sticks but also ‘educates’ them about the Hindu religion and the threat of the Islamic State.
The image of Sharma tutoring young Shubhi and Hrithik for
The Quint’s cameras is particularly compelling. Young Hindu recruits are tutored about Love Jihad, an alleged conspiracy to increase the Muslim population – the allegation being that Muslim men lure young Hindu girls into marriage, only to abandon them or force them into prostitution after they bear children to add to the Muslim population.
he fringe is becoming increasingly sophisticated in using the Internet to learn more about the threat of the Islamic State and using Facebook and WhatsApp to recruit and broadcast their agenda. Chetna Sharma claims she has over a hundred WhatsApp groups and one message reaches 2.5 lakh people.Swami Narsimhanand Saraswati is a popular face on the videos that several of these groups circulate on WhatsApp. Swami is the head priest of a temple in Ghaziabad, where the entry of Muslims is prohibited. He is also the ideological guru of several Hindu vigilante groups in the region. Swami carries a tablet, has an MTech degree and believes the Internet is emerging as a powerful tool in his religious crusade.Anil Yadav, the national head of the Hindu Swabhiman Sangh runs this training camp. In conversation, Yadav casually shows us the gun he carries at all times. He claims he has a license but adds that a firearm license is a ‘non-issue’. The weapons used in training are not licensed.