KOCHI: ‘Catch them young’ was the strategy of Navi Mumbai-based Burooj Realization, an Islamic educational organisation, whose key operators were arrested by the Kochi City Police for propagating radical religious ideologies on December 2.
The organisation had provided the controversial textbooks to Peace International School in Kochi, which allegedly taugh objectionable content to students.
The three persons - Dawood Mohamed Vaid, 38, Sameed Ahammed Sheikh, 31 and Sahil Hameed Sayed, 28 - have confessed to the investigators that their aim was to radicalise children in the age group of 5-13 years. The group realised that children are more susceptible to radicalisation as it is easy to instil the ideology in young minds. The photo of the accused displaying a banner itself reveals the strategy devised by the accused who prepared the curriculum for their propaganda.
It is learnt that the investigators have received concrete evidence regarding the intention of the publishers who introduced the controversial textbooks. The Burooj Realization has distributed the text books to 13 schools in the state, all run by Peace Foundation, headed by M M Akbar, according to the investigators.
The group identified kids as soft targets for radicalisation and announced a slew of offers ranging from snacks to certificates. After the arrest of Dawood Vaid, Sahil Sayed and Shaik Sameed Ahmed, it is learnt that Burooj Realization has withdrawn the textbooks distributed to schools across the country. “They confessed that there were errors in the text books for Class II students and claimed that corrected books will be distributed from the next academic year”, said an officer.
A team led by Ernakulam Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) K Laljy is interrogating the trio after obtaining their police custody till December 9.
Meanwhile, Central Intelligence Bureau and other agencies have also quizzed the trio, in order to check whether they have any international links. Preliminary inquiry
reveals that these persons have no association with controversial Islamic preacher Zakeer Naik and his Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).
Dawood Vaid was an electronic engineer by profession and had been employed in Switzerland.
He left his career as an engineer to start Burooj Realization and has held several workshops to promote Islam in the West Asia. Sayed was the curriculum designer at Burooj Realization while Sheikh was in-charge of choosing pictures that were to be used in the textbooks they published.
With the role of the publishers revealed, the focus is now on M M Akbar, the managing director of Peace Education Foundation. Police sources said the directors of the school, who are leading industrialists in Kochi, had no role in the selection of the controversial text books for curriculum.
Earlier, police had booked the Peace School authorities under Section 153(A) of IPC for promoting enmity among different groups on the ground of religion.
Burooj Realization having its office at Nerul, Navi Mumbai, published various text books which were part of syllabus at the Peace International school.
One such textbook had objectionable content like, “Will you give your life for Islam ?” There were also allegations that the Peace Foundation had radicalised a few students.