NIA charge sheets Bengal girl in LeT online terror recruitment case

0
262

NEW DELHI: The anti-terror probe agency NIA on Friday said it had filed a charge sheet in a special court in Kolkata against Tania Parveen in West Bengal Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) online recruitment module case under sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The officials in the NIA said the case pertains to the arrest of Praveen by West Bengal police on March 3, 2020, from Baduria of North 24 Parganas district of the state for her alleged connection with the LeT, a proscribed organisation.

The state police registered a case under various Sections of the IPC, the UAPA and the Information Technology Act, which the NIA re-registered on April 5, 2020, they added.

Investigation revealed that Praveen was a college student and had got radicalised in cyberspace by Pakistan-based cadres of the LeT, they said.

“Tania gradually became part of about 70 jihadi groups on social media, which propagated terrorist ideology advocating a skewed version of Islamic Jihad with the aim to further radicalise and recruit impressionable Muslim youth,” a senior NIA official said, adding that she was also active in various Palestinian and Syrian Jihadi social media groups.

The investigation further revealed that the LeT cadres based in Lahore had introduced Praveen to the officials of the ISI, who tasked her to open fake Facebook profile and befriend Armed Forces members in India to obtain sensitive strategic information, the official said.