Author: Mohammed Shafeeq, Indo-Asian
News Service
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: February 1, 2003
URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/030201/43/20pmp.html
A Muslim radical group has denied
allegations by the police that it was involved in a series of murders to
incite communal violence in this Andhra Pradesh capital.
Sheikh Mehboob Ali, the amir or
head of the Darasgah-e- Jehad-o-Shadath (DJS), denied that four youths
arrested by the police were members of his group. He said the allegation
was an attempt to malign the DJS and its activists.
Ranga Reddy district Superintendent
of Police (SP) Ramchandra Raju Friday announced the arrest of four suspected
members of DJS on charges of robbery and murder.
He alleged the four youths had murdered
nine Hindus in the past 10 months and the killings were to avenge last
year's sectarian violence in Gujarat where Muslims were the main victims.
He said suspected gang leader Imtiaz was still at large.
Ali said he had urged Chief Minister
N. Chandrababu Naidu to rein in what he called sympathisers of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) among the police and ensure that innocent Muslim
youths are not killed in staged gun battles.
DJS, which translates into school
of jehad and martyrdom, has six branches and about 200 members in Hyderabad.
It imparts training in martial arts and combat techniques to its members.
Ali, who is accused of inciting
young Muslims to violence, said DJS merely trained youths in self-defence,
as was being done by the RSS and other Hindu groups.
Ali has in the past been accused
of being an "agent" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He
was arrested in connection with communal riots in this city in 1998, but
a court acquitted him.
The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen
(MIM), a powerful Muslim political party, termed police officer Raju's
claims "concocted" and accused him of behaving like a member of the RSS.
Asaduddin Owaisi, MIM floor leader
in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, said police had arrested four innocent
Muslim youths and levelled baseless allegations against them.
He found "highly objectionable"
the allegation that the youths committed robberies and murders to avenge
the killings of Muslims in Gujarat. He wondered why the police had not
released the names of those allegedly murdered by the gang and other details
like the places where those killings happened.
Owaisi said he feared the police
might kill Imtiaz in a fake gunfight.
"The police statement that he is
absconding could be an excuse to kill him in a fake encounter as they did
last year when they killed two Muslim youths," he said.
The police had shot dead two young
Muslim men in two different "gun battles" in November. They alleged the
men were activists of Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashker-e-Taiba and
were involved in a bomb blast at a Hindu temple here. Two people were killed
and 20 injured in the blast.
The latest arrests have come at
a time when MIM, along with some other Muslim groups, is running a state-wide
campaign to demand a judicial probe into the killings of two Muslim youths
in November.
Demanding the release of the "innocent"
Muslims, Owaisi said a judicial probe should be ordered into their arrests
and the charges against them.
