On 01-02-2003, the police in Ranga Reddy district, skirting the Andhra Pradesh capital Hyderabad, has busted a gang of 'Jihadi murderers' with the arrest of four Muslim youths involved in the serial killing of atleast 100 innocent people from the Hindu community.
District Superintendent of Police V. Ramchandra Raju told a news conference here yesterday that the four were activists of the Muslim organisation, Darsgah-e-Jehad-o-Shahadat (DJS), active in the old city of Hyderabad.
Darsgah-e-Jehad-o-Shahadat (DJS) means "Center for Holy War and Martyrdom".
Mr Raju said the Muslim gang had carried out the killings of Hindus with the motive of launching Jihad. The four Jihadis are Mohammed Jaffer Khan (the 24-year-old owner of a hotel), Akbar (21-year-old bakery worker), 20-year-old driver Syed Mukhtar and 25-year-old Khalid.
The police have booked cases of murder, robberies, extortion and conspiracy to create communal discord and violence. The suspects have been sent to judicial custody. However Mr Ramchandra Raju said the DJS leader, 25-year-old Imtiaz, a lorry driver was absconding and the police were hunting for him.
The SP said that the modus operandi of the murderous DJS Jihadis was such that they used to pick up the unsuspecting Hindus from the bus stand or other places in their car after offering them a lift. After ascertaining victims' religious identity, the Muslims drove the unsuspecting Hindus to deserted places. There, the Muslims tied up their victims and slaughtered them ritually by slitting their throats Halal-style while chanting Quranic verses.
More than 100 Hindus are feared to have been murdered in cold blood in a similar manner by other DJS gangs operating throughout the city. Their bodies were found in similarly in deserted areas with slit throats.
But due to public apathy, there is no move to bring about an official ban on the DJS under POTA , arrests of its leader, Shaik Mahboob Ali, his son and son-in-law and other supporters and seizure of its assets.
There is no public outcry for Mahboob Ali’s arrest that would result in unearthing of information about the activities of other similar organisations which were allegedly responsible for "jehadi’ murders.
It is an open secret that various attacks like the bomb blast in the Saibaba temple at Dilsukhnagar and the attack on the Birla Mandir besides several murder cases in City and the outskirts which remained officially unsolved can be traced to DJS.
The MIM is openly supporting the DJS attackers involved in the Saibaba temple case. There is a open nexus between DJS, MIM and the outlawed Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The police argue that organisations such as the Darsgah Jehad-o-Shahadat (DJS) and the Tahreek Tahfooz Shaer-e-Islam (TTSI) have been breeding centres for Islamic militancy. They claim that high-profile militants have usually been trained by both organsiations, the DJS in martial arts and TTSI for militant mentality. The DJS claims to provided training to 20,000 men and 1,200 women so far.
DJS activist Vikar Ahmed, who along with his Jihadi associates, had fled after firing at three policemen at Santoshnagar and had connections with SIMI. Vikar Ahmed was well-known for his hate-filled sermons at the Darsgah Jihad-O-Shahadath (DJS) office for its Jihadi cadres attending the weekly arms training.
On 01-11-2004, terrorists of the Muslim organisation Darasgah Jihad-o-Shadath (DJS), who were following a vehicle carrying the dead body of the 20-year-old Jihadi called Mujahid Saleem Islahi, suddenly attacked policemen as they reached the volatile Saeedabad area. Islahi was killed when a Gujarat Police officer opened fire after about 50 followers of cleric Moulana Naseeruddin attacked a police team who came to arrest him.
Tahreek Tahfooz Shaer-e-Islam (TTSI) founder Moulana Naseeruddin was arrested in Hyderabad in connection with the murder of former Gujarat Home Minister and Hindu leader Haren Pandya. Previously, this Mullah had been arrested for giving shelter to a Pakistani terrorist and storing his automatic weapons and explosives in his own house. This bearded Mullah has groomed his children to follow in his footsteps. His three sons have been arrested for different terrorist cases, including terror blasts in 2007 at two popular locations - Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat Bhandar - in Hyderabad that killed 50 Hindu youngsters and left dozens of Hindu youths crippled for life.
[Reminder: This is the same Moulana Naseeruddin who is shown in the November 2004 photograph below (left, bearded with Jinnah fur cap) meeting with a prominent Naxalite (Maoist) terrorist leader Ramakrishna (center with green military-style cap) who proclaimed their decision to work together to jointly target Hindu Nationalists in the country and reiterated their decision to "physically eliminate'' the Hindu Nationalist forces.]
As Moulana Naseeruddin was being whisked away in a police van, about 20 Jihadis of Darsgah-Jihad-o-Shaadat (DJS), including women, threw stones and obstructed the van. As the vehicle stopped, they forcibly opened it and tried to take Moulana away while stabbing the police with swords and knives. Police prevented it by opening fire during which Islahi received bullet wounds.
The body of the dead Jihadi, Islahi, was brought to his house in Saeedabad in a procession from Osmania General Hospital where an autopsy was conducted. The procession took one hour to cover a distance of five kilometres as hundreds of Jihadis joined the procession.
Earlier, amid high drama, Mujahid's body was shifted from a private hospital to the government-run Osmania hospital for autopsy. Five people, including DJS president Mahaboob Ali, who were arrested Sunday night, were released to pacify the agitated Jihadis mob.
The autopsy was conducted after Islahi's father Abdulaleem Islahi rushed here from Kuwait and declared he was proud to be the father of a martyr.
A young Madrasa student dressed in battle fatigues, holding a placard "The Quran will be Constitution of India and I will be the Soldier of Allah" at a rally organised by DJS in Hyderabad in 2005.
Two brainwashed Madrasa students raising anti-Indian slogans at the DJS rally
HYDERABAD
Climate of Jehad
 |
| Protest rallies such as this glorify terrorism to keep passions inflamed in Hyderabad |
Seven-year-old Saleem came dressed as told. He covered his face and brought along his new gift-a toy Kalashnikov-to join the rally. The December 6 protest rally is an annual feature of Hyderabad but it is also illustrates how the jehadi mindset takes hold of a boy's mind. He is told to prepare for a holy war to subjugate India under Islamic rule, and terrorism is glorified by toy guns. That's how the Darsgah Jehad-o-Shahadat (DJS) keeps passions inflamed in the bylanes of the old city. History blends with propaganda to create an explosive cocktail.
No wonder there is a section ready to play host to those carrying the real weapons in their jehad. "This is quite disconcerting and the terrorist threat is serious," admits Police Commissioner P. Ramulu. Perhaps more serious than the Naxalite threat.
For the itinerant terrorist, Hyderabad is a haven. There are plenty of safe houses both in the old city and pockets in west Hyderabad. The security of these enabled Mohammed Ishtiaq, a let activist from Pakistan to cultivate relationships, marry a Hyderabadi girl and pass off as a local for three years.
Ishtiaq may have stayed that way longer but for a tip-off from the Delhi police after blasts in the capital in the summer of 1998. The Hyderabad Police tracked him down and arrested two other Pakistanis, Mohammed Shafeeq and Farooq Ahmed-both trained by the let-with a large cache of weapons and 18 kg of RDX.
The alarm bells first rang in November 1992, when Additional Superintendent of Police G. Krishna Prasad and his gunman were shot dead in the labyrinthine Bhavani Colony while raiding a terrorist hideout. The militants had links with the Mujahuddin-e-Islam of Kashmir which in turn was handled by the ISI. Subsequently, activists of outfits like Iqwan-ul-Muslimeen and Tanzeen Islahul-Muslimeen developed Hyderabad as a major terrorist centre for the ISI.
"The isi strategy was to create several modules with non-descript names and independent of one another to put us off any strong leads," says a senior police official. Later, they secured local recruits and sent them to Pakistan for training. They included a wanted killer Abu Omer, who returned to India with a Pakistani passport and attempted to kill former Mumbai mayor Milind Vaidya in March 1999 before the police caught him at a guest house in Lucknow.
Hyderabad has been targeted by the ISI because of its communal mix and strategic location. It is both the hub from where militants head for get-aways in contiguous Maharashtra and Karnataka and the hide-outs of others who carry out operations elsewhere. Activists of the Al Umma, responsible for the Coimbatore blasts of February 1998, were provided shelter in the Secunderabad cantonment.
What baffles the police is the frequency with which terrorist facilitators change labels. Often, dormant groups are activated for specific missions. "We can't take any action as we lack evidence," admits a top official. At best the special task force for ISI activities can monitor jehadi groups. But there is no way it can anticipate when impressionable boys like Saleem turn activist and start harbouring terrorists.
COVER STORY
An open-ended scheme
A digital image of Abdul Rahman, prime suspect in the shootout at IISc Bangalore on December 30, is displayed by Bangalore Police Commissioner Ajaykumar Singh.
| HYDERABAD |
HOLDING back his tears, 75-year-old Maulana Abdul Aleem Islahi recounted the saga in which his eldest son, Mujahid Saleem Azmi (23), was gunned down by a Gujarat Police squad right in front of the Andhra Pradesh State Police headquarters in Hyderabad over a year ago.
Islahi is among the scores of kin of Muslims who strayed to the path of jehadi violence in the State in an ideological reaction to the terror perpetrated by the state itself.
The State police have busted 24 ISI-backed operations and arrested 170 youth in specific cases since Islamic fundamentalism raised its head in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition.
During this time the militants were based mostly in Hyderabad and to some extent in Nalgonda. A suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operative, Abdul Rahman, was picked up by the Bangalore Police in Nalgonda in connection with the recent shootout at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
The police argue that organisations such as the Darsgah Jehad-o-Shahadat (DJS) and the Tahreek Tahfooz Shaer-e-Islam (TTSI) have been breeding centres for Islamic militancy. They claim that high-profile militants have usually been trained by both organsiations, the DJS in martial arts and TTSI for militant mentality.
The police arrested a mechanic and TTSI activist Shakeel in connection with the recent suicide bombing at the Hyderabad Police Commissioner's Task Force. Shakeel is also employed in the workshop of the TTSI founder-president Maulana Naseeruddin, who is lodged in the Sabarmati jail after he was booked in the Gujarat conspiracy case.
Muslim leaders describe the case as part of an "open-ended scheme" of the Gujarat Police to pick up people from Andhra Pradesh for riots in that State. They say that so far 18 persons have been arrested and 40 more are wanted.
The cases of the human bomb from Bangladesh, Mohtaseem Bilal, who blew himself up at the Commissioner's Task Force, and the alleged Hizbul Mujahideen activist, Mujeeb Ahmed, are being pursued by the police. It was Mujeeb Ahmed who set the tone for Islamic fundamentalist violence, by gunning down Additional Superintendent of Police Krishna Prasad in 1992. He and his brother, who was killed, allegedly procured an AK-47 rifle from the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
Mujeeb Ahmed was jailed in the case but was granted remission of sentence by the State government for good conduct on the eve of Independence Day in 2004. Mujeeb Ahmed was said to be in touch with the Hizbul Mujahideen chief, Salahuddin, while he was serving his sentence in jail. He renewed his contacts with the cadre of the organisation after his release. The police booked a case against him under the Indian Telegraphic Act after recovering a satellite phone and compact discs containing seditious speeches.
In 1993, a doctor from Mumbai, Jalees Ansari, carried out five explosions in and around Hyderabad, marking a change in tactics by fundamentalists.
Azam Ghouri and Asghar Ali are others who have taken the jehadi movement forward. Asghar Ali was a petty criminal who came in contact with Mujeeb Ahmed in jail. On his release, Asghar Ali procured weapons and Research Department Explosives (RDX) from Kashmir with the help of contacts introduced to him by Mujeeb Ahmed.
The Indian Muslim Mohammedi Mujahideen (IMMM) and the Deendar Anjuman, Muslim Jihadi group that actively converted Veerashaiva Lingayat Hindus to Islam and headquartered at Gadag in Karnataka, fuelled the movement in subsequent years. The Anjuman's chief, Zia-ul-Hasan, is said to have settled in Pakistan after migrating from Hyderabad. The sect allegedly aims to destroy the Indian economy through jehad. It carried out several explosions in the State, including in churches and mosques.
No comments:
Post a Comment