The tremors of the cross-border event, the takeover of Kabul by Taliban in Afghanistan are being felt in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Within 48 hours of Taliban taking over Kabul, the Yogi Adityanath Government announced setting up of an Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in Deoband, a town known for its Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband.
There is a palpable sense of outrage among the clerics of Deoband over the setting up of an ATS commando training centre in their town. Though there was no public display of jubilation in Deoband after the takeover of Kabul by Taliban, a sense of accomplishment was obvious as the Islamic seminary in Deoband is the alma mater of the Taliban. The clerics of Darul Uloom Deoband are unwilling to speak on record. They, however, maintain that the government decision to set up ATS in Deoband is a deliberate attempt to equate terror with Deoband and malign the image of the seminary.
Maulana Sami ul-Haq, known as the Father of Taliban in Pakistan, who set up Darul Uloom Haqqania in Peshawar where the Talibans were trained, was a student of Darul Uloom Deoband. He was also a member of Pakistan senate and was assassinated in 2018 in Rawalpindi.
The reverberations of the fall of Afghanistan to Taliban forces are being felt in the poll-bound State, especially western UP and the small dusty town of Deoband in the Saharanpur district. While UP has nearly 20 per cent Muslim population, the concentration is the highest in the western region at 26-46 per cent.
It was Chief Minister Adityanath’s media advisor Shalabh Mani Tripathi, who linked the decision to the Taliban's return to Afghanistan. He tweeted in Hindi on August 17: “Amid the Taliban’s savagery, here is a piece of news from UP. Yogi ji has decided to open a commando training centre in Deoband. Over half-a-dozen ATS officers selected from across the state would be deputed there,” he said, adding that the decision was “causing pain” to “those protecting terrorists”.
Opposition parties in UP have criticised the decision. Samajwadi Party leader Ram Govind Chaudhary alleged it was to “instill fear” among the Muslims of the region. The Sambhal MP of SP, Shafiqur Rahman Barq, went a step further and defended the Taliban takeover, equating it with India's freedom struggle. He said in Sambhal on August 17, that the Taliban did not allow Russia or the United States to establish themselves in Afghanistan, “and now they want to run their own country”. He was promptly slapped with a case under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code for sedition by the UP police.