The digital recruiter | Shahzad Bhatti

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Over the past two years, the name of a social-media influencer from Pakistan has been surfacing in several terror-related investigations in India.

What started as a bid by the individual identified as Shahzad Bhatti to establish fear and clout in the border State of Punjab soon spread to 14 States, with several young men finding themselves behind bars under the stringent anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), for acting on his directions. Their assigned tasks included pasting posters glorifying Bhatti and his associates, installing CCTVs near critical installations, which were being live-streamed into Pakistan, or making extortion calls.

On September 16, the Union Home Ministry designated the ‘Shahzad Bhatti Network’ (SBN) as a terrorist group under the UAPA. The Ministry said in a notification that through its terrorist activities, the outfit poses a “serious threat to the democratic system, communal harmony, and internal security of the country”. Over 200 suspects, linked to the SBN, were detained or arrested in a countrywide counter-terror operation ahead of Independence Day.

Bhatti, who speaks Punjabi and regularly posts video on Instagram and Facebook with a filter to enhance his looks, currently operates from the UAE. Dressed in traditional pathani suit, his videos, mostly shot while getting off an expensive car or next to a snooker table, always have boastful background music.

Security officials said he has graduated from “organised crimes” to “terror-related activities” over the past year and was tapped by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), considering his reach among Indians through social media. Several of his Instagram accounts, which always end in ‘333 ’, have been flagged by security agencies. Before the pre-Independence Day pan-India raids and arrests against the SBN, Delhi Police had blocked 125 Instagram accounts related to Bhatti. Since October 2025, the police have registered 15 FIRs and arrested 69 accused, two-thirds from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Those arrested were poorly educated, economically vulnerable individuals recruited via social media for money, lured with the promise of relocating to the Gulf, or for resolving personal issues.

Bhatti’s earliest association with criminal activities in India started in Punjab, and it soon spread to Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala.

The SBN is the 46th outfit to be designated as a “terrorist organisation” under Section 35 (I) of the UAPA, 1967, which empowers the Ministry to designate an outfit as a “terrorist organisation.”

Without mentioning the specific cases against the SBN, the Ministry notification listed nine categories of crimes registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Information Technology Act, 2000, Explosives Substances Act, UAPA, the Official Secrets Act, 1923 (OSA), the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 and the Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 2007. The Ministry said the SBN is an organisation whose objective is to involve gullible youth and local criminals to smuggle arms, explosives, and narcotics from across the border.

A Uttar Pradesh police officer said Bhatti contacted young men who engaged with his social media posts and offered them ₹5,000-₹10,000 to put up posters carrying his images in public places to project him as a gangster and instil fear. He later recruited some of them to throw grenades or plant explosives near critical installations. The payments, often originating from Central Asian countries, were transferred directly to bank accounts.

After assessing a recruit’s willingness to take risks, Bhatti allegedly assigned more serious tasks, including installing Chinese-made CCTV cameras near railway stations, air bases and arterial roads, with footage livestreamed to Pakistan. In one instance, he allegedly sent online manuals to men in Punjab on making petrol bombs and an IED. “In some cases, money was the motivation, while in others, religious sentiments were exploited,” the officer said.

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