Lone wolf threat

    It is a fact that vulnerability will make a person prone to wrong action. Lone wolfs are individuals in society who are vulnerable and fall easy pray to ideological or religious extremism and commit grave crimes.

    We are living in a society which breeds inequality, injustice, exploitation and degradation. All these are considerably visible in the poorer and weaker sections of the society. Some individuals become more vulnerable when they are exposed to this social reality. This vulnerability impacts their mind and finally they end up being radicalised and take extreme unprecedented decisions/actions. These individuals are called lone wolfs.

    Today there is a lot of content online enough to influence and radicalise on ideological or religious grounds. The ease of access to these videos to the general public through social media platforms has made radicalisation a mundane activity.  Fake news along with vulnerability combined with online content are enough for an individual to go to extremes. These online content tend to further aggravate the disbelief in the system and convince them the need to change the system through violent, illogical and inhuman means.

    Unlike sleeper cells, in which an individual belonging to a terrorist organisation is inactive in the society and gets activated when directed by the organisation; the lone wolf does not belong to any terrorist organisation. He/she is just a common person leading a normal life. In this normal life, the individual might suffer from many issues. It might be lack of job or lack of government support or lack of basic affordable infrastructure or lack of access to proper education, or social injustice, etc. These suffering make an individual vulnerable and makes him find an alternate route through the system or develop a hatred against the society. The individual might fall prey to radicalisation and extremism.

    Lone wolfs are not easy to detect and intercept. They are just people living like everyone of us in the society. They might have no criminal records or other violations. They are not affiliated to any terrorist organisation which carry out a planned attack. The attack by lone wolf is carried out single handedly right from planning, procuring arms or weapons and then execution. There is no communication or external help sources. This becomes very difficult for the intelligence agencies to prevent lone wolf attacks. We have seen a lone wolf attack in London where a truck is run on many people or we see in USA a lone wolf carrying a gun to a supermarket or a mall and starts shooting at everyone around.

    We have to remember that each and every person in the society is a part and parcel of the society and they have equal rights for dignity. It is time that we as a society recognise the human rights of everyone and see to it that nobody is marginalised and made vulnerable and fall prey to extremism. The government also has a key role in following a welfare state concept. While the Fundamental rights mainly ensure political democracy, Directive principles of State policy in our constitution has many provisions related to social and economic democracy. Developing a sense of fraternity, education in morals,  responsibility of social media to moderate online content and general public awareness is the way forward.