Outfit in UP raising 'dharma sena' to battle Islamic State - An outfit known as Hindu Swabhiman is raising and preparing what it calls a "dharma sena" to wage war against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), which it thinks will conquer western Uttar Pradesh by 2020.

Its leaders claim there are already 15,000 "soldiers" who are ready to die to protect their faith.

Four such camps are spread around the communally sensitive belt of western UP and the outfit has even recruited child soldiers, some of them as young as eight years old, reported TOI. All were being trained to use swords and firearms. The leaders of the outfit, headquartered at a temple at Dasna in Ghaziabad district, assert their ranks are growing by the week.

There are three known training camps in Meerut city and five camps in Muzaffarnagar district alone.

Swami Narsinghanand Saraswati, the Hindu ascetic whose philosophy drives the outfit's work, stays in the temple where a board says, "Yeh teerth Hinduon ka pavitra sthal hai. Musalmanon ka pravesh varjit hai. Aadesh Mahant Baba Narsinghanand Saraswati."

Militant attacks on India provide followers of the Hindu Swabhiman an opportunity to program young minds.

Saraswati says they have begun a mass contact programme. He said, "We have been addressing two panchayats per month, on average. At the panchayats, I ask my Hindu lions to be brave and make sure they keep weapons with them at all times. During the Muzaffarnagar riots, we went to the ground and asked people to be armed. All these politicians, who claim credit for saving Hindus, are lying."