New Delhi: The Islamic State has been evolving its strategy and has now moved on from lone wolf attacks to attempting to poison the water at many places in India. These revelations came to light after the police in Gujarat foiled a major plot.

The Islamic State-inspired plot involved the use of ricin, which is a highly toxic compound that is derived from castor seeds.

Ricin, recognised as a potent naturally occurring toxin, is classified as a Category B bioterrorism agent and also a Schedule 1 controlled substance under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The Gujarat Police have arrested Dr Ahmed Mohiuddin Syed from Hyderabad, an MBBS graduate who studied in China before taking up a job in Gujarat. The police said that he, along with Mohd Suhel and Azad Suleman Saifi from Uttar Pradesh, had planned to extract ricin and use it to poison water meant for public consumption.

They had also planned on poisoning the Temple prasad in Lucknow and Delhi. This shows a clear shift in the operations of the Islamic State. The outfit had initially planned on setting up modules in India, but that plan did not work out. Later on, they encouraged their recruits to indulge in lone wolf attacks, but that too did not gain any traction.

According to the Intelligence agencies, the outfit has been discussing a shift in tactics through its online channels and encrypted chat groups. Bio-terrorism has been discussed among major terror groups for some time now. The Islamic State now intends to take it forward. This is an extremely dangerous trend that the country is witnessing, and the idea to use ricin only shows how much the group has evolved.

Another official said that with each passing day, the Islamic State is evolving. Its strategy has been changing frequently, and the fact that it is relying on a very unconventional style makes it even more dangerous. A lone wolf attack needed no planning, and the detection levels were almost nil. Such attacks did not need any planning, and any person who has been radicalised online could strike.

Further, it is very difficult to keep a tab on each person who is radicalised by the Islamic State ideology, and the very fact that such a person does not undergo formal training and is not part of any terror module makes detection next to impossible. The use of ricin is part of yet another evolving strategy of the Islamic State. It can be extracted from castor seed, which is easily available. The matter of concern for the agencies is that ricin is not associated with terrorism. This means that the detection is difficult. The agencies have had the arrested persons on their radar for some months now.