Police in the western Indian state of Gujarat have begun implementing a controversial anti-radicalisation framework that has triggered serious concern among Muslim groups and civil rights activists, who warn that the policy risks turning ordinary expressions of Islamic identity into grounds for state suspicion.
The first known implementation has taken place in Jamnagar district, where Police Sub-Inspector M.V. Modhwadia has reportedly been appointed to head the local Anti-Radicalisation Cell under the supervision of Superintendent of Police Dr Ravi Mohan Saini. The move follows a confidential Standard Operating Procedure issued by Gujarat’s State Intelligence Bureau in June 2026, directing districts and police commissionerates to establish Anti-Radicalisation Cells and submit monthly reports on their activities.
The Gujarati-language document, reportedly marked “Secret”, surfaced on social media and has since become the centre of a wider debate over surveillance, religious freedom and the political targeting of Muslims in India. According to reports by The Wire and Maktoob Media, the SOP instructs police to monitor social media platforms, encrypted messaging applications, online forums, local intelligence networks and individuals or organisations believed to promote so-called radical ideas.
At the heart of the controversy is not merely the creation of a security mechanism. It is the kind of behaviour the document reportedly treats as suspicious.
When Islamic Identity Becomes a Police Indicator
According to reporting on the leaked SOP, signs of alleged radicalisation include suddenly keeping a beard, wearing a niqab, frequent use of Arabic words, reducing contact with family or friends, expressing strong resentment over events affecting Muslims globally, praising proscribed armed groups, or changing behaviour after travel to places such as Afghanistan or the Middle East.
The document also reportedly refers to the use of VPNs, encrypted messaging platforms such as Signal and Element, Telegram groups described as extremist, cryptocurrency use without an apparent source of income, communication with people in Afghanistan through encrypted applications, and the circulation of certain chants or Islamic nasheeds.
The problem is obvious.
Some of these indicators may relate to genuine security concerns if linked to criminal activity. But many are ordinary religious, cultural or privacy-related behaviours. A beard is not extremism. A niqab is not extremism. Arabic words are not extremism. Concern for Muslims suffering around the world is not extremism. Using encrypted applications is not extremism.
For Muslims, these are not minor details. They go to the core of religious life, personal dignity and basic constitutional freedoms.
If a Muslim man grows a beard, a Muslim woman wears niqab, or a believer uses Islamic phrases such as alhamdulillah, insha’Allah or assalamu alaykum, such conduct should not place them under suspicion. These are ordinary parts of Muslim identity and worship.
Treating them as warning signs does not fight extremism. It normalises profiling.
Civil Rights Groups Warn of Communal Surveillance
Civil rights activist Shabnam Hashmi has sharply criticised the framework, saying it places routine expressions of Muslim identity under suspicion. Speaking to Maktoob, she said the Gujarat government was “institutionalising communal profiling” and using state machinery to criminalise ordinary expressions of religious and cultural identity under the language of national security.
Hashmi also warned that practices such as keeping a beard, wearing niqab, using common Arabic greetings or performing i’tikaf during Ramadan were effectively being transformed into indicators of radicalisation. Her concern is that the line between legitimate policing and surveillance of constitutionally protected freedoms is being deliberately blurred.
Mujahid Nafees, convener of the Minority Coordination Committee, also told Maktoob that the organisation had submitted a representation to the Gujarat government demanding the SOP be withdrawn. He warned that vague terms such as “radical” and “radical organisations” could be manipulated to target an already criminalised Muslim community.
This is where the danger becomes structural.
A broad and subjective policy does not need to name Muslims in every line to function as a Muslim-focused surveillance tool. If its practical indicators disproportionately describe Muslim religious behaviour, Muslim social concern, Muslim clothing, Muslim language and Muslim networks, then the effect is clear.
The Muslim becomes the suspect before any crime has been committed.
The Missing Standard: What Counts as Crime?
The SOP reportedly defines radicalisation as a process in which an individual adopts ideas considered anti-national, threatens India’s unity and integrity, influences others to adopt such beliefs, or promotes the idea that only one religion is true while others are false.
That final point is especially alarming for religious freedom.
Every major faith tradition makes truth claims. Muslims believe Islam is the truth. Christians believe Christianity is the truth. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and others hold their own religious convictions. A religious belief that one’s faith is true is not, by itself, radicalisation.
The real legal question should be whether a person is inciting violence, planning violence, financing violence, recruiting for violence or committing a crime.
Without that clear threshold, the state risks policing belief rather than conduct.
This is not a small legal concern. India’s Constitution protects equality before the law, freedom of speech, religious freedom, dignity and privacy. A framework that allows police to monitor people for ordinary Islamic practice risks undermining those protections in the name of security.
Why Gujarat Matters
The Anti-Radicalisation Cells were first promised by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party during the 2022 Gujarat Assembly election campaign. BJP president J.P. Nadda said at the time that the party would create such cells to identify and eliminate potential threats, sleeper cells, terrorist organisations and anti-India forces.
The latest rollout appears to be the fulfilment of that political pledge.
But the context matters. Gujarat has long been central to India’s Hindu nationalist politics, and the BJP has faced repeated accusations from critics of advancing a Hindu nationalist agenda that treats Muslims as a civilisational threat rather than equal citizens.
That political environment makes the ARC framework even more worrying.
In a neutral system, anti-radicalisation policy would examine all forms of extremism, including violent Hindu nationalism, cow vigilante violence, anti-Muslim mobilisation and hate campaigns. But critics say the reported Gujarat framework appears heavily focused on Islamic religious identity while failing to apply comparable scrutiny to extremist behaviour associated with Hindu nationalist groups.
That imbalance is not incidental. It is the core of the criticism.
Security Cannot Become a Weapon Against Muslims
No society should ignore genuine threats of violence. Muslims themselves have an interest in public safety and community security. Islam does not permit criminal violence, vigilantism or lawlessness.
But public safety cannot be built on communal suspicion.
A state that monitors religious clothing, Islamic vocabulary, Muslim social concern and private communication tools is not simply fighting radicalisation. It is expanding the architecture of surveillance into the everyday religious life of Muslims.
This is especially dangerous when paired with India’s wider pattern of anti-Muslim rhetoric, citizenship anxiety, bulldozer politics, hate speech, restrictions on Muslim personal law, and the repeated portrayal of Muslims as outsiders within their own country.
In such an environment, “anti-radicalisation” can become a political label used to discipline a minority community.
The Islamic Dimension
For Muslims, the issue is not only civil rights. It is also about the dignity of Islamic practice.
A beard can be an act of religious commitment. The niqab can be an expression of modesty and obedience to Allah. Arabic phrases are part of the shared language of the Ummah. Concern for Muslims in Gaza, Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan, India or elsewhere is not a security threat. It is part of Muslim brotherhood.
Islam teaches Muslims to stand against injustice, to care for the oppressed and to maintain their religious identity with dignity. None of this should be criminalised.
The danger of the Gujarat framework is that it appears to treat visible Islam as a risk category.
That should alarm not only Muslims, but anyone concerned with law, democracy and equal citizenship.
A Test for India’s Constitution
The Gujarat government now faces a serious test.
If the Anti-Radicalisation Cells are truly about preventing violence, then the framework must be transparent, legally narrow, evidence-based and subject to judicial oversight. It must distinguish clearly between religious practice and criminal conduct. It must apply equally to all forms of extremism. It must not become another instrument through which Muslims are watched, labelled and intimidated.
Civil rights groups are already demanding that the SOP be withdrawn, and the Minority Coordination Committee has warned it may approach the Gujarat High Court if the state does not respond.
The question is whether India’s institutions will treat Muslim fears seriously, or whether the language of security will once again be used to silence a vulnerable minority.
A beard is not a crime.
A niqab is not a threat.
Arabic words are not evidence.
And Islam is not radicalisation.
If Gujarat cannot make that distinction, then its anti-radicalisation project risks becoming exactly what critics fear: a state-backed mechanism for profiling Muslims under the cover of national security.
