Bangladesh, Sept. 12 -- The Delhi Police bust was not an endgame—it was the prologue. What investigators seized was less significant than what it revealed: that the theatre of jihad has shifted from borders to browsers, from mountains to minds. Unless New Delhi recognizes that the war is being waged inside classrooms, mosques, and digital networks, it will remain reactive—arriving after the blast has been averted, while the script of grievance spreads unchecked.

The Delhi Police, working across four states, arrested five men linked to an ISIS-inspired module—in Delhi, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana. These were not hardened foreign fighters; they were young Indians adopting code names like “CEO” and...