HYDERABAD: The police have so far apprehended six Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) sympathisers from the city, Telangana Home Minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali said on Thursday. The police are on the job to find out their antecedents in Madhya Pradesh and learn if they were planning any terror strikes anywhere.
The Counter Intelligence (CI) Cell has found out that Mohammad Saleem, one of the accused who was working as the Head of Department (HoD) in one of the well-known colleges in the city, was holding camps in the Anantagiri forest area and was conducting training for the recruits.
According to the directions given by one of the accused, Yasir from Bhopal, Saleem gathered approximately 40-45 people and was trying to convert them into HuT sympathisers.
He was coaching them in self-defence techniques, including martial arts and also use of weapons.
Saleem, who is in Madhya Pradesh’s Anti Terrorism Squad’s (ATS) custody, has the details of those unidentified individuals and the CI Cell is looking into it.
Sources said the CI Cell will receive informaton from the ATS that would help them in its investigation further. ATS is now grilling Saleem and it might yield ample information about those who are being brainwashed into becoming HuT sympathisers.
The CI Cell will counsel with 40-45 individuals who were recruited and trained to be activists of the outfit.
‘WANT TO BE MORE DANGEROUS THAN ISIS’
Police said the accused were regularly interacting with top leaders of the HuT online regarding provocative speeches that could vitiate the peaceful atmosphere in the country. A senior police officer said they were in touch with their handlers in Pakistan and Bangladesh and were spreading HuT ideology to “become a more dangerous terrorist group than ISIS. Officials said the group members planned to move abroad and take training in arms as well as chemical, bacteriological, and biological warfare