With the help of Odisha Police, the Delhi Police arrested a Muslim clergy, Maulabi Abdul Rehman, from his house on the outskirts of Cuttack in early hours of Wednesday for his alleged links with global militant organisation al-Qaeda.
A lower court here in the afternoon allowed the Delhi Police to take the 37-year-old suspected terrorist to the national Capital on a two-day transit remand. Sources refused to disclose his travel schedule to Delhi on security considerations.
0While police seized Rehman’s passport, a mobile phone, a tablet and some incriminating documents from his possession, family members decried his arrest, claiming he was innocent and being framed on false allegations. “He teaches religious subjects at a madrasa in the nearby Tangi area and is innocent,” said one of Rehman’s relatives.
Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Twin City Police Commissioner Dr RP Sharma told reporters that Rehman was arrested following a late night raid at his village Paschima Kachha under the Jagatpur Police Station of the Urban Police Department (UPD).
Police did not face any resistance either from Rehman or from the villagers during
the raid.
“A native of Odisha, Rehaman had early education here at a madrasa and went for higher studies in Uttar Pradesh, where he obtained a PhD in theocratic studies. He is an active member of the Indian Sub-Continent of al-Qaeda (AQIS) having contacts with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Dubai and other places of the Indian Sub-Continent,” Sharma informed and said Rehman had gone to Pakistan in 2006 for some training.
Sharma further informed that Rehman’s elder brother Tahir Ali had been arrested in 2001 in connection with the terrorist attack on the American Embassy. “Following a requisition from the Delhi police, a decision was taken on Tuesday evening to conduct a joint raid in which special police officers of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar led by their respective DCPs participated.
Rehman has relatives in Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and london, said the Police Commissioner, adding that further interrogations and investigations by the Special Cell of Delhi Police and Odisha Police would be held to establish his other links and activities in Odisha.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that Rehman was acting as a facilitator in recruiting youths for militant organisations. He was under the scanner of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) since September this year following reports that Rehman, nicknamed as “Kataki”, was giving inflammatory and hate discourses to youths in Jharkhand.