New Delhi: The Coimbatore-based alleged recruiter of an ISIS module who was arrested last week by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was also the district president of an organisation that was an offshoot of banned terror outfit SIMI, ThePrint has learnt.
Thirty-two-year-old Mohammed Azarudeen had been involved in organising several events of the Wahdat-e-Islami Hind, which is not a banned group but is an offshoot of the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), claim intelligence agencies.
Wahdat-e-Islami Hind is a wing of the Uttar Pradesh-registered Wahdat-e-Islami.
Sources in the NIA also said that Azarudeen was a Facebook friend of Zahran Hashim, the suicide bomber of Sri Lanka’s Easter terror attacks that killed over 250 people.
Azarudeen maintained a Facebook page named “KhilafahGFX” through which he propagated the ISIS ideology and carried out recruitment of youngsters in south India, added the sources.
His arrest last week came after searches were conducted at seven locations in Coimbatore. It is the first link in establishing an alleged connection between ISIS modules in Coimbatore and Sri Lanka.
Also read: Sri Lankan envoy says steps being taken to ensure ISIS doesn’t gain ground in south Asia
Wahdat-e-Islami Hind
Claiming to be a religious body and a charitable trust, Wahdat-e-Islami looks to guide its followers to the “right ways of practicing true Islam”. It was registered in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur in 2006.
The organisation which holds several religious seminars, meetings and events has an office in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, and also has a Twitter page.
Sources in the intelligence agencies said after the ban on SIMI in 2001, it reconstituted under several names with different heads, and the Wahdat-e-Islami Hind too is an offshoot of the same.
A source in the security establishment said that even though there are no cases against the organisation, they have been on the radar for allegedly radicalising youth in south India and encouraging them to join jihad.
“They are believed to be an offshoot of SIMI and have been on our radar. Though we have found links of some of the arrested persons in cases of terror, with this organisation, there is no sufficient evidence to link their direct involvement in any case,” said the source who didn’t wish to be named.
“They are, however, being monitored.”
SIMI fronts
According to information available on South Asia Terrorism Portal, SIMI has four organisations as its ‘fronts’ at the national level — Tahreek-e-Ahyaa-e-Ummat (TEU), Tehreek-Talaba-e-Arabia (TTA), Tahrik Tahaffuz-e-Sha’air-e-Islam (TTSI) and Wahdat-e-Islami.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs, however, has not banned these groups.
In 2017, Wahdat-e-Islami general secretary Ziauddin Siddiqui had held a meeting to voice concern over “saffronisation” of the education system. He had said that the process of bringing a cultural change was being implemented silently and called for united efforts by all sections of the community to counter these attempts.
Some of the efforts he suggested included setting up counseling centres to create awareness about ‘Shariat’.
Also read: NIA arrests ‘Facebook friend’ of Sri Lanka Easter suicide bomber in Coimbatore