Have the Indian Mujahideen and Pakistan's ISI fallen out?

Home-grown terror group Indian Mujahideen (IM) and the Pakistani Intelligence Agency ISI aren’t on the best of terms anymore, according to the latest news reports. The reports indicated that for IM terrorists, ISI has gone from being the affectionately code-named “Mamu” to “Kutte.”

According to a New Indian Express report, the “ISI has unleashed various methods of torture against IM terrorists,” in retaliation for the group trying to ally with al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan.

Another report in DNA which is based on the National Investigating Agency (NIA)’s chargsheet filed in the Patiala Court House, says that when the NIA looked at the “correspondence between senior IM operatives”, it was evident that they were unhappy with “the ISI control” and “have code named ISI as kutte (dogs) for treating them as slaves living on its crumbs.”

Initially a CNN-IBN r eport had said that founder of IM Yasin Bhatkal had told investigators that the group was fully-funded and managed by the ISI. The report had said that, Yasin Bhatkal also told the investigators that the ISI created Indian Mujahideen to give the impression of home grown terror in India.

The move also helped the ISI to hide its own footprints on terror strikes in India. Bhatkal is suspected to have been involved in the 2007 Hyderabad blasts, 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts, 2011 Pune’s German Bakery blast and the Dilsukhnagar blasts in Hyderabad again in 2013.

Clearly as the latest chargesheet reveals, a lot has changed where ISI and IM’s bonding is concerned in the past couple of months.

According to the DNA report, another IM operative, “Riyaz Bhatkal was badly treated by ISI for trying to establish contact with al Qaeda and was sternly warned to desist from any attempt to contact Al-Qaeda fighting in the Af-Pak region.”

According to the New Indian Express report, IM founder Riyaz Bhatkal “recently travelled to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa tribal belts along Afghan-Pakistan border to establish contact with al-Qaeda and Taliban, was warned by ISI asking him to desist from any attempt to contact al-Qaeda, Taliban or even Tehreek-e-Taliban- Pakistan (TTP).”

The DNA report quotes a security analyst who looked at the bulk of the email conversation as saying that the records indicate that the ISI is now worried that the Indian Mujahideen could “become a headache for Pakistan by joining al Qaeda that is trying to take over control of Pakistan with the help of TTP.”

However not all in the IM it seems are in favour of going with al-Qaeda.  The New Indian Express report adds that during the interrogation, it was evident that there is rift among the IM terrorists as it was revealed that some “IM terrorists hiding in Pakistan were not in favour of joining hands with TTP as they are less brainy and foolish.” The chargesheet also states that al-Qaeda gave “specific tasks to the IM for execution and also agreed to train their cadres in terrorist activities.”

The rift is not really good news for India as indicates that while ISI’s grip might have loosened on the Indian Mujahideen, the group has full plans of aligning with al-Qaeda.