Hyderabad police claim they were on their way to Afghanistan to undergo training by Al-Qaeda and they were in touch with another Hyderabad-based youth. But the family of the Hyderabadi youth denies any such link and terms it yet another conspiracy to tarnish the image of their family.
The story of two Maharashtra youths —
25-year-old Shah Mudassir and 24-year-old Shoeb Ahmad Khan, who were arrested by the city police at Secunderabad station on Wednesday last —has taken a curious turn with a Hyderabadi cleric denying any links with them.
North Zone Deputy Commissioner of Police, Jayalakshmi claimed the two youths had links with one Moutasim Billah, son of renowned cleric Moulana Abdul Aleem Islahi. She said the Maharashtra duo was in touch with Billah over social media and he had exhorted the two to go to Afghanistan for armed training.
Shah Mudassir hails form Omerkhed and Shoeb Mansoor from Pusad.
She also claimed that the police recovered jehadi literature from the duo. On how the police got a tip-off about the presence of the youths at Secunderabad, she said their movement arose the suspicion of the police. Police also claimed that like Moutasim, the Maharashtra youths also had links with the banned organisation Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
Jayalakshmi said that a Pakistani national, Kamran Shah, came in touch with them on Facebook and shared with them the techniques of manufacturing bombs. He motivated them to carry out attacks in Maharashtra.
The duo was produced in the court, which remanded them to judicial custody. Though the police claimed the involvement of Moutasim Billah and also claimed that he had promised the duo to secure a visa for them, he was not taken into custody.
Meanwhile Billah’s father Abdul Aleem Islahi issued a statement strongly denying any links of his son with Maharashtra youth. “Ever since my elder son Mujahed was killed by Gujarat police in Hyderabad, police have been harassing my family, torturing us mentally and trying to involve me and my son Moutasim in one or the other fictitious case,” he said,
He said that Moutasim has been named in many cases during last ten years but was acquitted in all of them. “Now the police have come with yet another story. We strongly denied the allegations of police,” he said.
Another cleric Moulana Mohammed Naseeruddin, who was also acquitted in different cases by court in Gujarat said that the two arrested youths of Maharashtra can not have any links with SIMI as they are too young for that. “SIMI was banned in 2001 and ages of these boys was ten or 11 years at the time. How primary school students can be the members of any such organisation,” he asked.