KUALA LUMPUR: Public universities should not concentrate on physical security alone as terrorists group can infiltrate the minds and thoughts of students and even lecturers, said Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed.

He said terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (IS) will always try to recruit from universities in order to make use of the knowledge and abilities of students, including making bombs and hacking into key infrastructures such as power plants.

“The threat may only involve a small percentage of students, but their objective is to use few resources to carry out high impact terrorism acts.

“They want to create an atmosphere of fear among the people especially in public places.

“They don’t need that many people, just a handful of recruits,” he said during a seminar on security for public universities today, held at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia here.

He noted that terrorist groups are recruiting through the Internet which can be done without being on campus grounds physically.

He said if the recruiters can establish a relationship with people in the universities through social media, the link is there.

However, using the Internet will leave trails which allows for police to trace and identify the terrorism network.

As such, the authorities can monitor them and take preventive action by making arrests, he added.

At the same time, Nur Jazlan called on the security personnel of universities to open their eyes, be more vigilant, observant and ask questions while on duty.

On another note, he reminded the public not to spread fake news by forwarding contents on social media and WhatsApp unwittingly.

He warned that this could threaten national security as the public have a tendency to believe fake news.

© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd