Hyderabad: Telangana Police on Wednesday arrested an absconding member of radical outfit Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HUT), a day after nabbing five alleged members of the outfit, officials said. A police official said that the accused Mohammed Salman, who was absconding during the police raids on Tuesday, was arrested on Wednesday by the Telangana police.
The police on Tuesday arrested five alleged HUT associates following a tip-off by the Madhya Pradesh police's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). The MP ATS arrested 11 alleged HUT members including a gym trainer, software engineer and teacher, and booked them under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and other relevant provisions of the IPC.
Of the 11 arrested accused, 10 were arrested from Shahjahanabad, Aishbagh, Lalghati and Pipalani areas of MP capital Bhopal, while one was nabbed from Chhindwara city. The ATS claimed to have recovered “anti-national documents”, electronic equipment and radical literature from the arrested members' possession.
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It said that the HUT network is spread in more than 50 countries adding the outfit had been banned in 16 countries. The MP police claimed that the organisation was “aiming to topple the democratic system in India and replace it with Sharia (Islamic law regime)”. In Telangana, sources said that the members of the outfit held frequent secret gatherings to radicalise the youth and recruit them into the outfit to carry out violent acts.
According to sources, the main kingpin in module, Mohammad Salim alias Saurabhraj Vaidya, came to Hyderabad from Bhopal in 2018 and got a job in a well known medical college here upon the recommendation of a businessman. A year ago he rented a house in the Golconda area and lives with his wife and six children there.
Sources said that the frequent HUT meetings in the name of 'Bayan', were mostly held at Salim's house. ATS Police along with Telangana counterintelligence personnel conducted the operation to bust the module. The investigation agencies have been trackign the movements of the HUT members for quite some time now.
