Tamil Nadu Police on Saturday arrested six members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), an international Islamist outfit, for anti-national activities such as propaganda against holding elections and democracy.
According to police officials, the arrested persons include, Ahmad Mqansoor, a man in his fifties, his two sons — Hameed Hussain and Abdul Rehman. Along with them, three others, Mohammed Maurice, Khader Nawaz Sherif and Ahmed Ali, who were aged between 26 and 33 have also been arrested. All of the arrested individuals are native of Chennai and are booked under the provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Operatives used YouTube to propagate thier ideology
Hameed Hussain holds a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering. He had been teaching engineering in colleges. Hameed Hussain was involved in posting videos on YouTube advocating his ideology while his father Mansoor held private meetings to further the same cause.
As per the officials, "It all began with an initiative to translate Zakir Naik's (fundamentalist Islamic preacher who fled India years ago) preachings into Tamil."
"What began as a modest exercise to seek support from followers of Islam for pan-Islamic rule or the Caliphate appeared to grow strong as the number of participants in closed-door meetings increased," he said.
"The group was arrested following their propaganda against conduct of elections, democracy; and participation in the voting exercise and the topic of a propaganda was whether elections were Haram (forbidden by Islamic law) or Halal (lawful under Islamic law) and the verdict was that election and democracy were Haram," the senior official added.
Propaganda against rule of law
One of the arguments of HuT members against democracy was that democracy and rule of law are man-made and hence are not perfect and subject to change. They argue that the divine law does not fall into such a category and hence it is supreme.
The six HuT members were arrested by Chennai police (cyber crime) in an operation closely coordinated by intelligence sleuths. "Central intelligence agencies are aware of developments related to HuT," the official said.
Notably, the HuT is a banned organisation in countries including Bangladesh and the United Kingdom.
(With PTI Inputs)
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