After a day-long search operation across ten locations in five districts of Tamil Nadu, including a site near Chennai, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested two individuals linked to Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an international pan-Islamic fundamentalist organization.
The arrested individuals have been identified as Abdul Rehman alias Abdul Rahman and Mujibur Rehman alias Mujibur Rahman Altham Sahib, both residents of Thanjavur district. The NIA’s investigation revealed that the duo was involved in conducting secret classes that condemned democracy, the Indian Constitution, law, and judiciary as ‘anti-Islamic.’
An official statement from the NIA detailed that the trainees were indoctrinated with the belief that India is a ‘Darul Kufr’ (land of non-believers) and that it was their religious duty to transform it into ‘Darul Islam’ (land of Islam) by establishing an Islamic state through violent jihad.
During the raids, the NIA seized mobile phones, laptops, SIM cards, memory cards, and several incriminating documents, including books and printouts containing the ideologies of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the Khilafa, the Islamic State, and the proposed Khilafa government and its funding structures.
In Chennai, an NIA team led by a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and personnel from Tambaram city police conducted a search at the residence of Kabeer Ahmed, a 40-year-old man in Mudichur. The searches commenced at 5:30 am today, according to police sources.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an organization committed to re-establishing an Islamic caliphate, aims to enforce the constitution written by its founder Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani. Founded in 1953 in Jordan, Hizb-ut-Tahrir has been banned in several countries, including China, Russia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Germany.
Meanwhile, nearly 10 years after a terrorist attack at Burdwan in West Bengal, a joint team of Bengal’s STF wing and Chennai police arrested a member of a fundamentalist outfit at Koyambedu on Friday.
The arrested man, identified as Anwar Anisur Rahman, 30, a native of Burdwan east in West Bengal, had been working as a part of the laundry staff at a three-star hotel in Koyambedu for the past few months. Anwar was part of ‘Ansar-al-Islam’, a terror module supporting Al-Qaeda suspects based in Bangladesh and resorting to anti-national activities in the country.
Based on a tip-off, STF DSP F Kandi Dev and four others came to Chennai and tracked down Anwar near Kaliamman Koil Road, near TAISHA, which houses most of the state’s top bureaucrats.