HYDERABAD: The Counter Intelligence Cell of Telangana police, in a joint operation with the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Madhya Pradesh, detained 16 persons, including five from Hyderabad and the rest from Bhopal, allegedly associated with a radical Islamist organisation called “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” (HuT) early on Tuesday.
The five accused from Hyderabad were regularly interacting online with top leaders of the HuT regarding provocative speeches that could vitiate the peaceful atmosphere in the country, police said. A sixth accused is absconding.
A senior officer from Telangana police said that pistols, two airguns, pellets, and “Jihadi” literature were seized from them. He said that some of the accused had adopted Hindu names and were living in Hyderabad.The senior officer said that the accused were in touch with HuT members in Pakistan and Bangladesh. They were spreading HuT ideology to “become a more dangerous terror outfit than ISIS,” he said.
Police officials said the group members planned to move abroad and take training in arms as well as chemical, bacteriological, and biological warfare. They said that the Intelligence Bureau and NIA had been keeping a watch on the online discussions of these HuT sympathisers for the last three months and swooped in on them early on Tuesday.
Police identified the arrested accused as Mohammed Saleem, 41, alias Saurabh Raj Vaidhya, son of Ashok Raj Vaidhya, who is working as the HoD in a prominent pharmaceutical biotechnology college in Hyderabad. Saleem has been staying in Moti Mahal of Bada Bazar in Golconda and is a native of Bhopal as well as Abdur Rahman alias Devi Prasad Panda s/o Panda Ravi Narayan, 33, a native of Odisha and working as a cloud service engineer in Hyderabad, and also staying in Golconda.
Along with them, Mohammed Abbas Ali alias Baska Venu Kumar s/o Baska Chetalu, 36, working as an auto driver and resident of Hafez Babanagar, Shaik Junaid S/o Shaik Jaleel, 32, and working as a dentist in Bada Bazar of Golconda and Mohammed Hameed, 32, a daily wage worker from Jagadgirigutta were also detained.
Police said Mohammed Salman, 27, a daily wage worker from Balajinagar in Jawaharnagar police station limits, is absconding, and a manhunt is on to nab him. All the five people detained have been shifted to Bhopal for further probe.HuT was founded in Jerusalem in 1952, and the group has expanded its ideology and formed branches in several countries. Sources said that the group claims to have organised a demonstration in 2010 at Batla House in Delhi against atrocities by Israel.