New Delhi--In the circles of police’s “SIMI investigations”, Maulana Naseeruddin’s name comes up often. Police have filed cases against five members of his family till today and after spending years in jail, they have been acquitted. The acquittal of his younger son Raziyuddin Nasir in a Hubli court along with 16 other suspected SIMI men Thursday is the fourth time members of his family have been acquitted in the last five years.
Besides himself and his three sons, the fifth member of Maulana’s family to be arrested for alleged terror links was Obaid-ur-Rehman, a BCom student from Hyderabad, who was arrested in September 2012. He is Naseeruddin’s sister Tahira Khatoon’s grandson. “He was arrested in Hyderabad and booked in a case by Bangalore Police. Then he was also booked in a case in Delhi,’’ he said.
Maulana Naseeruddin
On October 31, 2004, Naseeruddin went to the DGP’s office to sign his weekly attendance in an earlier case of communal violence. “Two months earlier, I had been arrested after police claimed I was going to plant bombs at a Ganesh temple. I fell ill and was shifted to hospital. Our lawyer friends secured bail,” Naseeruddin said. “That day, the CID officer who would take my signatures told me a senior officer wanted to talk to me.” He said he was taken to the IG, who said an arrest warrant for him had come from Gujarat.
A Gujarat police contingent led by then ACP Narendra Amin (now in jail for his role in the encounters of Sohrabuddin and Kausar Bi) had come to take him to Gujarat where he had been “accused of a role in (former Gujarat minister) Haren Pandya’s murder case’’. “People from our neighbourhood didn’t allow the vehicle to leave. Narendra Amin opened fire and it hit Mujahid Saleem.” Mujahid (26) was elder brother of Moutasim Billa whose family are close friend’s with the Maulana’s.
Indian Express
