The IS group – Ansarul Khilafah Jammu Kashmir – has started an active channel on the encrypted messaging service telegram that is used to disseminate the usual IS propaganda along with manuals for making weapons and planning and carrying out attacks.

In recent weeks, the channel has featured a call to Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel to defy their officers and direct their weapons at the “enemy of Muslims and Islam”. On July 5, the group put out detailed instructions on how IS supporters “on the ground in Kashmir” and “present at the clashes against the Enemies of Islam” could prepare for attacks.

On Monday, the group put out instructions in Hindi on how attacks could be carried out with large trucks, such as the ones in Nice, France and the German capital Berlin last year, along with potential targets.

 The interest in Kashmir is very old amongst jihadists, just like their interest in Palestine is old. For them, anywhere they see Muslims suffering is a potential theatre of jihad, a place to send help and fight back.

Earlier, the Telegram channel of Ansarul Khilafah Jammu Kashmir was extensively used to pay tributes to Sajad Gilkar, a slain terrorist whose body was wrapped in the IS flag at his funeral in Srinagar on Wednesday. It featured a photo of Gilkar standing before a brick wall with the graffiti “ISIS Town” and described him as a mujahid who lived by the “flag of tawhid” (the doctrine of monotheism that defines Islam) even though say he was linked to Hizbul Mujahideen.