A second-year law student and his friend from a management background are doing something that most people would not think to do and would not know how to do even if they tried.
When an anonymous social media account posts hateful content about Islam or commits blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad, their newly founded organisation tracks it. Not metaphorically! It tracks the actual person behind the account, using publicly available information: a username reused across multiple platforms, a phone number visible in a group chat, a face appearing in the background of a video. All of it is open-source, and it feeds into a growing database the organisation uses to build a detailed profile of the person behind each anonymous account. From there, they pursue legal action against the offenders.
The organisation’s founders did not wish their names to be published. The work, one of them told The Observer Post, should be what people know.
The organisation is called ADL Front (The Advanced Digital Lawforce Front). Under it operates the Al Syed Initiative, a public-facing platform that documents cases of online hate speech and blasphemy against the Prophet.
In nearly three years, the founders say they have handled close to a hundred cases of online hate speech. Around ten are currently published on their website; the rest are either in progress, legally sensitive, or awaiting documentation — a backlog that reflects just how much work two people running a self-funded operation can actually get through.
What ADL Front Actually Does
The technology the organisation relies on is called OSINT (Open Source Intelligence), the same approach used by investigative journalists, intelligence agencies, and security researchers worldwide. Everything the process requires is publicly available; there is no hacking and no illegal access. “OSINT is ethical,” one co-founder said. “We don’t move beyond OSINT. That’s the line we don’t cross.” Once a person’s identity is confirmed through this process, the team moves to legal action.
Depending on the severity and nature of the content, that action can take several forms: cybercrime portal complaints, awareness campaigns, or in cases where identity has been confirmed and the evidence is strong — an FIR filed with local police. The team works with volunteer lawyers to navigate this process.
Over time, the team has developed a working sense of which route is most effective for which type of case. Online complaints through official portals, they noted, are only partially effective; ground-level FIRs, while more demanding logistically, tend to produce more concrete outcomes.
Upskilling the Next Generation and Spreading Awareness of Cybercrime
Through the Al Syed Initiative’s training arm, the team has also built an online academy, with roughly 200 students enrolled in courses on OSINT, reconnaissance, attack surface mapping, and web application security. Courses are delivered through live virtual classes, and students who want to join the investigative work must meet a basic threshold of competence. Membership on the operational team requires demonstrated OSINT ability. The academy’s fee-based structure also helps keep the broader operation financially afloat.
The Scale of the Problem
To understand why a project like this exists, it helps to understand the landscape it operates in.
Anti-Muslim hate content on Indian social media is not a fringe phenomenon — it is industrialised. Accounts, many anonymous and many operating in networks, produce content ranging from mockery and misrepresentation of Islamic practice to direct blasphemy against the Prophet. The co-founders described encountering content that, on investigation, appeared to have been created by paid actors posing as Muslims to manufacture internal community conflict, as well as content from individuals who had developed deep-seated prejudice after prolonged exposure to right-wing content ecosystems online.
“They are brainwashed,” one co-founder said of the people they encounter in investigations. “They’ve absorbed so much hate from larger pages, and they just reproduce it. For them, this kind of content is a way to gain popularity — it gets engagement, it spreads.”
The effect, the co-founders said, is a false impression that Islam and Muslims are something other than what they are — that the religion is constantly in the wrong and that its followers deserve contempt. In their framing, this isn’t merely bigotry; it’s a sustained propaganda operation.
Threats the Organisation Faces
The co-founders are candid about the risks their work carries. More than seventeen of their social media accounts have been taken down — some with followings in the hundreds of thousands — through coordinated mass reporting and fake copyright strikes.
Even so, the team has rebuilt every time, with new accounts, new audiences, and new uploads. Even their educational content about Islam, unrelated to any investigation, has been caught in the crossfire and removed. One co-founder attributed some of this to Instagram’s automated moderation systems flagging Islamic content indiscriminately. The cycle of losing and rebuilding platforms is, by now, simply part of the routine.
Anti-Muslim hate content on Indian social me dia isn’t occasional — it’s produced in volume, often by anonymous accounts operating in coordinated networks. “People who commit blasphemy are beginning to understand,” one co-founder said, “that being anonymous doesn’t mean being untraceable.” That, for now, is the point: not to solve the problem, but to make it riskier to continue.
Future Goals
The organisation’s long-term strategy is to develop an internal talent pool and provide them with advanced instruction in Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) through mentorship and practical learning. These members are expected to become part of ADL Front’s Digital Wing and handle tasks such as digital research, intelligence gathering, and other operational work.
In the long run, their goal is to reduce dependence on outside experts by developing skilled personnel within the organisation.
More on ADL Front’s work at adlfront.com and cases.alsyedinitiative.com.
Shahzeen is a journalist and content producer with The Observer Post.
