HYDERABAD: President of the Old City-based fundamentalist outfit Darsgah-Jihad-O-Shahadat (DJS) Shaik Mahboob Ali has once again landed under the police scanner.
After yesterday’s incident at Santoshnagar wherein a former DJS member and suspected SIMI member, Viqaruddin Ahmed, and at least three of his associates opened fire at two police constables of the Counter-Intelligence Cell, the DJS is back in the news for all the wrong reasons. Top police sources disclosed to `Express’ that Mahboob Ali, who must have crossed 60, continued to get financial support from the Gulf running into lakhs of rupees every year.
“He shows his bosses sitting in the Gulf the work he has done here in the form of organising press conferences and even sends paper clippings. His socalled work is to spew venom at the police machinery, finding fault with the sleuths whenever they pick up suspects and organising dharnas and rallies, especially on December 6 every year, which is observed as “black day’’ following the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992,’’ the cources said. If police sources are to be believed, Mahboob Ali’s grandson, known as Nazi, had allegedly received militant training in Iraq. Earlier, he is said to have travelled to Bangladesh and Pakistan and his whereabouts are not known for the last several years.
Moreover, this is not the first time that members of the DJS have come to adverse notice. Earlier, the police arrested over a dozen Muslim youth for various offences for instigating mobs to pelt stones at policemen and reportedly circulating provocative CDs depicting the Babri Masjid demolition and trying to provoke the members of the community.
On December 6 every year, Mahboob Ali ropes in a large number of burqa-clad women and children holding toy AK-47s and organises a rally from DBR Mills to Indira Park after which he addresses the gathering spewing venom at the BJP leaders and the police machinery for “harassing innocent persons”.
The most violent protest organised by DJS members was the pelting of stones during the burial of Mujahid, the youth who was shot dead outside the DGP’s office way back in 2004. The DJS workers led by Mahboob Ali and community members were protesting the arrest of Moulana Naseeruddin, the president of another fundamentalist outfit, Tehreek- Tahfooz-Sharia-e-Islam (TTSI), by the Gujarat police then. The agitators had then set on fire the four-wheeler belonging to the then DCP, East Zone, KVRN Reddy, who is presently the Vijayawada police commissioner. The Intelligence sleuths had even suggested the State Government to impose a ban on this outfit.
When contacted by Express to know his version about Viqar being a DJS member, Mahboob Ali said, “Viqar used to work with our organisation two years ago.” Asked in what kind of work Viqar was involved with the DJS, Mahboob Ali shot back angrily: “Do you want me to say he was making bombs and revolvers? Sorry, I do not want to talk to you,” and he hung up.
vikramsharma@epmltd.com