Wanted for funding anti-CAA protests, ED nets SIMI operative in Kerala

New Delhi, Dec 12: An operative of the Students Islamic Movement of India was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate at the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport on Saturday in connection with a money laundering case.

Rouf Sharif, a native of Anchal in Kollam district was deported from Muscat after the ED and Lucknow police issued look out circulars against him. He is alleged to be involved in funding for the nationwide strike against CAA and NRC.

The agencies are currently interrogation him. It may be recalled that Delhi Police had arrested one Abdullah Danish who wanted in a sedition and unlawful activity case.

Danish was wanted in a sedition case and under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Danish had been declared a proclaimed offender in 2002 by a court after he remained untraced. He and several others had fled the SIMI headquarters in Jamia Nagar during a raid in 2001.

DCP Special Cell, Pramod Kushwaha said that he had allegedly radicalised Indian Mujahideen terrorists, Abdus Subhan Qureshi and Abu Bashar. It may be recalled that the two were key players in the IM and were behind the Ahmedabad serial blasts of 2008.

Danish indoctrinated dozens of Muslims over the past 25 years. He was one of the most elusive members of the SIMI. The DCP said that they got inputs that Danish was trying to radicalise Muslim youth and was also mobilising them against the CAA and NRC.

He has also been accused of propagating hardcore radical ideology to create disharmony among the religious groups.

Kushwaha also said that he was falsely propagating atrocities being committed upon Muslims by the government by using fake videos. He completed his MA in Arabic from the Aligarh Muslim University in 1985. At Aligarh, which is the epicentre of SIMI's activities, he came in contact with some operatives, following which he was radicalised. He then joined the SIMI, attended weekly programmes and radicalised Muslim youth to join the outfit.

The then SIMI president Ashrag Jari made him the chief editor of SIMI's Hindi magazine, Islamic Movement in the year 1988. He wrote several provocative articles. During interrogation, Danish said that Bashar had stayed in his house at Aligarh after the Ahmedabad blasts of 2008. Subhan ran camps at Kerala and Karnataka after he motivated him to do so.