11 min readMumbaiAug 16, 2026 07:06 AM IST First published on: Aug 16, 2026 at 07:00 AM ISTAshraf Daniyal, 23, a handloom worker from Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh, living in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra; Sajid Mehboob Shaikh, 21, a garbage collector from Kurla, Mumbai; Krishna Mishra, 20, of Gorakhpur, UP, forced to take up work as a child due to poverty; Amarjit Singh and Karanjit Singh (both 19) and Satnam Singh, 22, friends from Gurdaspur, Punjab — these are a few of the many youngsters identified in the past two years by law enforcement agencies across the country as having been lured via social media by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and nurtured as sleeper cells to carry out activities at its behest.At the heart of the alleged operations, as per officials, is Pakistani gangster Shehzad Bhatti and his associates. Daniyal was allegedly befriended in January this year on Instagram by Hamad Memon, an aide of Bhatti. After he had been suitably impressed by Memon, Daniyal was reportedly invited to another messaging group where one of the main topics of discussion was the state of the minorities in India and how to change it.