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Muslim groups allege harassment of Imams by police

JAIPUR: Incensed at the continued harassment of clergymen and madrasa teachers in the wake of the Ajmer dargah blast, Muslim groups in Rajasthan on Wednesday demanded an immediate release of all “terror suspects” detained by the police without any evidence of their complicity in the crime.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has reportedly taken a dozen Imams, Maulvis and madrasa teachers into custody and is interrogating them to ascertain their alleged links with Islamist outfits. None of them has been produced in court so far, while the Muslim groups accused the police of torturing the detainees to extract “fake confessions” from them.

The police set free a madrasa teacher, Khushibur Rehman, detained in Godda district of Jharkhand, on Tuesday night. An Imam of a mosque in Khandela village of Sikar district, Abdul Hafiz Shameem, was earlier released on Saturday.

Mr. Rehman, teaching at Madrasa Jamia Latifia at Sardarshahar in Churu district, was picked up in October-end in Godda, his native place. The SIT suspected him of having contacts with the Lashkar-e-Taiba . A Crime Branch team brought Mr. Rehman to Ajmer without obtaining transit remand from the local court, but the SIT could not get anything substantial from him. On a lead purportedly provided by him, the police detained Maulvi Imran Ali in Osmanabad district of Mahrashtra last week. Muslim groups told newsmen that after Mr. Rehman being found innocent and set free, the case against Maulvi Imran Ali had automatically collapsed. “Imran Ali and other clergymen incarcerated by SIT without following the due process of law should be released forthwith,” said Qari Moinuddin, convenor of the Rajasthan Muslim Forum.

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