IN the last two weeks nine youths have been reported missing. None of them was wanted by the police or had criminal record, and all of them were pursuing higher studies in public and private institutions except for one who was a madrassa student. That they were not picked up surreptitiously at the dead of night can be safely assumed because the telltale signs that accompany such disappearances are absent in all the nine cases. The question then is, where are they?

One wonders whether there are grounds to presume another worst case scenario in the disappearance of the nine young men, that they have left the country clandestinely to join international Islamist extremist groups. Only in August this year we were informed by the police that between 30 and 50 young men had gone missing. And several of those killed in counterterror operations in recent months had been reported missing earlier. If they are bound for where conjecture suggests they are, then it is worrying.

Obviously, the message of the extremists are still resonating in the psyche of a section of our youth, albeit very miniscule. It is obvious too that the more educated section of the youths are being targeted for recruitment.

It is time we seriously devised means to make our society impervious to these extraneous pulls that the youths are being subjected to. We must also make sure that their entry in the country is made as difficult as it has been easy for them to leave, and that they are preempted before they can cause any damage to us.