Islamabad: In recent years, Pakistan has witnessed incidents that raise the spectre of extremist leanings among educated youth, rare as such cases might be.
The arrest of 20-year-old female student Noreen Leghari in Lahore this year for allegedly plotting a suicide attack and inciting the on-campus mob killing of 23-year-old journalism student Mashal Khan in April has amplified concerns that a smattering of the highly educated youth at universities may be drawn to the path of violent extremism.
Ever since, there have been debates and brainstorming sessions galore in academia on how to check trends of extremism and militancy among students.
To address the rising threat of radicalisation on campuses, a Pakistani expert, Dr Fawad Kaiser, has proposed a clear-cut solution in an exclusive interview with Gulf News.
“The Preventing Identifying Extremism in University Students [PIEUS] project is a multi-pronged strategy to protect vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism,” said Dr Kaiser, a forensic psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry.
The first-of-its-kind project proposed by Dr Kaiser aims to stop people becoming involved in violent extremism or supporting terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support. The second main objective of PIEUS is to prevent vulnerable people from being drawn into extremism by early identification.
Dr Kaiser has almost 30 years of experience in the field of education, psychology and criminology, out of which he has focused on the study of terrorism for 15 years.
After running a successful pilot project in a local police training school, Dr Kaiser is confident that the strategy will immensely benefit youth not only in the country but worldwide, especially in Central and South Asia and Middle Eastern countries.
- Dr Fawad Kaiser
PIEUS will focus on colleges, universities and madrassas since Pakistan’s education system is mainly divided into three categories: Urdu and English language-medium schools, and madrassas, he says.
Dr Kaiser has pitched the PIEUS idea to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan and Shifa Tameer-e-e Millat University — the university he is currently affiliated with. “Both institutions have welcomed the idea. In fact, HEC has also promised a grant for the project,” he says.
The idea was conceived based on Violent Extremism Risk Assessment (VERA), a tool designed by a Canadian terrorism expert, Dr Elaine Pressman, to help exerts identify individuals at high risk of committing violent acts in the future, Dr Kaiser explained.
Along with the PIEUS project, he has also recommended establishing Pakistan’s first National Centre for the Study of Extremism and Conflict Management by bringing on board all universities in the country to study terrorism trends and to initiate precise preventive measures.
“The project has become all the more significant now as recent studies suggest that the recruitment pattern of terrorists has changed as they are focusing on graduates,” says Dr Kaiser who has worked in Pakistan and the United Kingdom over the course of his career.
A recent study carried out in 2016 by the Sindh Counter Terrorism Department revealed that, out of 500 detained suspected militants in jails across the province, 134 had Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees while 63 were matriculates or had passed intermediate-level exams. However, most of the 500 suspects belonged to low-income groups, indicating that unemployment makes them an easy target for extremist groups.
But how do you spot a student extremist in a university? “Anyone can have extremist views. You simply cannot isolate people based on their views. But we have to look for subtle signs of radicalised minds that have the tendency to become part of a militant organisation,” says Dr Kaiser.
Explaining the issue, he says it is a three-way process. “The first symptom is extremism, second radicalisation, which finally leads to terrorism.”
All three stages are different in nature and thus cannot be countered with the same strategy, he says.
In his quest to understand what makes young people drawn towards violence, Dr Fawad studied global researchers focused on terrorism. “Forensic psychiatrists and criminologists agree on certain common features found in extremists, such as feeling alienated and victimised, having a strong devotion to their cause, and a lack of remorse.”
Such behaviours need to be addressed with discussion, dialogue and patience. The universities must promote extra-curricular activities and hold open discussions to allow open public space to all students, he suggests.
To understand the complex and deep-rooted issue of terrorism, worse-affected countries like Pakistan must focus on the origin of the problem. “When you kill a terrorist, you just kill one person with a certain mindset, not the ideology and radicalisation process behind the person.” To demolish the behind-the-scenes ideology, “we need research, studies, data and collaboration.”
He explained how the PIEUS project will benefit the youth.
The youth segment dominates Pakistan’s population of 200 million and is also the most vulnerable group. The trend of extremism among educated youth is a wake-up call for the government as it threatens the nation’s most important asset.
Although the percentage of students who support violent extremism in Pakistan is very small, fears are growing that “even few can cause a big damage and the risk is too high.”
For successful implementation of PIEUS, Dr Kaiser believes it should be linked with the National Action Plan, Pakistan’s counter-terrorism strategy designed in January 2015 following the killing of 133 children by terrorists at the Peshawar Army School.
Given its commitment to curb terrorism, the Pakistan government must support the PIEUS programme, which could be implemented through a syndicate of HEC, educational institutes and law enforcement agencies working in tandem, he says.
“PIEUS will ideally feature a team of people — psychiatrist, psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, political scientist, law experts, and work in collaboration with national and global universities,” Dr Kaiser suggests. He adds that his peers in Pakistan and abroad are eager to join the project and believe that Pakistan can set a remarkable example globally by initiating such a project.
To counter radicalisation, Pakistan must first identify the problem, take on board multiple stakeholders including religious people, invest in skills and training and address the issue scientifically with tools and intervention programmes, said Dr Kaiser.
When asked if the ‘identify and prevent strategy’ risked inducing fear among students, Dr Kaiser argued: “People are used to extra security checks at airports and have to wait in long queues to be screened properly. Does it panic them? No. In the same way, the screening process has to be nice and proper.
“The PIEUS project will help identify the mindset of a student because mind is the biggest weapon that needs to be screened.”
However, Dr Kaiser also clarified that PIEUS should not be used as a means for covert spying on people or communities. “Trust will be the keystone of PIEUS.”
What should the universities be doing to counter extremist ideology? “The answer is really simple: they should be doing what they are meant to do. That means teaching their students by working with them, knowing them, guiding them and ensuring that they keep to the basic values.”
