Young British Muslims who flee the UK to fight 'jihad' in countries like Syria and Iraq are just "depressed and lonely", an Indian-origin psychiatry professor has claimed.
Kamaldeep Bhui, Professor of Cultural Psychiatry and Epidemiology at Queen Mary University of London, feels these young people should be allowed to return to the UK without being criminalised and that radicalisation should be treated as a health issue in the same way as drugs or alcohol abuse.
Bhui interviewed more than 600 people in Muslim communities in Bradford and London to learn what drives Britons to risk their lives in a foreign country.
"Something about them suggests they are disaffected," he told the Telegraph.
"The group who sympathised were younger, in full time education and generally wealthy. They were more likely to be depressed and socially isolated. There is a bit of youthful naivete. They have romantic fantasies. They have never experienced sharia law or a caliphate before and they get there and it's not like they thought," he added.
The academic found that those on the path to radicalisation are most likely to be educated and come from wealthy families, but feel bored with their lives and socially isolated. Girls are just as likely to start down the path to radicalisation as boys.
"I think it would be a disaster, you criminalising them and disowning British citizens. Some of these kids are young and probably inexperienced," he said.
During his research the professor also found that migrants are unlikely to become radicalised because they are poorer, busier struggling to make a living, and they remember the problems of living in non-westernised countries.
According to Britain's MI5 intelligence agency, there could be as many as 500 British fighters in Syria and dozens of women are believed to have travelled to the country to join the brutal Islamic State (IS) terror group or marry jihadists.
One man with a British accent known as "jihadi John" was filmed beheading American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
Bhui has asked Muslim parents to keep a close eye on their children to pick up signs of depression or loneliness and said that local imams could be crucial to keeping youngsters on the right path.
