On the eve of 2026, while India is preparing to celebrate the upcoming new year, the Assam STF operated sneakily to dispose of a looming threat. On December 29, in “Operation Praghat,” security forces arrested 11 members of the ‘Imam Mahmuder Kafila’ or Imam Mahmud’s Caravan.
Unlike Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, a Bangladeshi Sunni terrorist group, which was established in 1998 and aimed at discarding democracy, liberalism, socialism, and secularism in favour of an Islamic state in Bangladesh, the IMK is the latest entrant in the terrorism portal in India.
IMK formed in 2018 spreads the ideology of “Ghazwatul Hind” under Jewel Mahmud alias Imam Mahmud Habibullah. and spreads the ideology of of “Ghazwatul Hind“. The arrest of 11 people, including 10 from different parts of lower Assam and one from Tripura, for their alleged role in fundamentalist activities linked to IMK, are keeping the security establishment on tenterhooks.
For security analysts, the Assam STF’s Operation Praghat wasn’t just any other security crackdown but a clampdown which has a deeper resonance concerning the security of northeast and eastern India at large before the upcoming Bangladesh general election 2026 and West Bengal assembly election. Assam police were not just tracing the “flap” of a cyber-ghost network known as “Purva Akash.”
For a casual observer, these are merely a series of labels on a laundry list of charges. “The outfit members worked in the shadows for years. The arrests are a success for us no doubt but we are alarmed at the turn of events. I believe the ‘rebranded’ jihadi threat amid the Bangladesh political turmoil can be far-reaching if not nipped in the bud. We are alarmed and alert as well,” Special Task Force chief and Guwahati Police commissioner Partha Sarathi Mahanta said.
As Bangladesh goes to the hustings on February 12, the first in decades without the presence of Awami League in power, “Purva Akash” has transformed in more ways than one. What started off as an idea incubator for radical thinking has now metamorphosed into an internationally advanced logistics network. The need behind this application is to ensure the philosophy of ‘Ghazwatul Hind’ becomes a reality through a tactic formed around the most crucial geopolitical point of the Indian government, the ‘Siliguri Corridor’.
According to police, the tentacles of social media group ‘Purva Akash’ are already spread in Assam, Tripura and West Bengal, where large numbers of youths are being radicalised as “warriors of IMK.”
The “Purva Akash” menace is being seriously viewed by security officials in Assam. The new alarm is that in the garb of “secure social media”, the shadow online network bypassed the digital dragnet. “much more carefully designed in terms of Purva Akash architecture: “It is more than an application because it has a “shadow” communication protocol that is utilised by Imam Mahmuder Kafila (IMK) to evade Indian Signals Intelligence (SIGINT),” a cyber security expert said.
The Digital “Bayat” (Pledge of Allegiance)
What is most terrifying about this Purva Akash social media platform is that it combines recruitment with ritual practices. New recruits in Barpeta Road, Baksa, and Chirang areas are required to not only send a message, but to actually perform a video-visual ‘Bayat’ (allegiance).
Micro-transactions using UPI
Using genuine-sounding small transactions to evade AML filters. Cross Border Settlement through Hawala: For bigger amounts of money supposed to go into weaponry training within the Rangpur Division, the Cross Border Settlement through Hawala is done through a traditional hawala system which is reflective of the trading routes existing between Meghalaya and Bangladesh.
The Pincer Strategy: February 12 and the Siliguri Vulnerability
The “Predictive Intelligence” proposes that the rhetoric offered by the National Citizen Party (NCP) in the city of Dhaka is the atmospheric conditioning for these modules: An intelligence official, who did not wish to be named for strategic reasons, said, “When all these elements are in place, a ‘pincer’ effect will be created. From the East: IMK modules functioning in West Tripura and Darrang to cause civil unrest. From the North, they are trying to utilise Siliguri Corridor (Chicken’s Neck, which is 22km long).”
Here’s a quick review of all possible attacking options available to The BNP-Jamaat victory’s effects on the security situation at Siliguri Corridor cannot be overstated. With their leaders, such as Nasim Uddin, Assam’s IMK chief, already calling and supporting “violent armed struggle” at clandestine sessions held only on December 28, 2024, the clockwork schedule to launch operations has been perfectly calibrated to kick in in the aftermath of the February 2026 elections.
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