Police said on Saturday that six members of the international Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) have been arrested for anti-national activities, including propaganda against elections and the conduct of democracy. A senior police official said those arrested were a man in his 50s, his two sons and three others aged between 26 and 33, adding that sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) were invoked against them. “What started as a modest movement calling on Muslim believers to support pan-Islamic rule and the caliphate appeared to gain momentum as more people joined the closed-door meetings,” he said. “The group was arrested after they carried out propaganda against the conduct of elections and democracy. “The topic of their participation and propaganda in the polls was whether elections were haram (forbidden under Islamic law) or halal (legal under Islamic law), but it has been ruled that elections and democracy are haram,” the official told PTI news agency. One of the arguments made by HuT members against democracy is that democracy and the rule of law are man-made and therefore subject to change and imperfect, but God’s law does not fall into such a category and is supreme.
Those arrested include Hameed Hussain, a doctorate holder in mechanical engineering who was completing his degree in 2021. He taught engineering at the university. Hussain’s father Ahmed Mansoor and brother Abdul Rehman were also arrested, along with three others — Mohammed Maurice, Quader Nawaz Sherif and Ahmed Ali. All six are from Chennai.
Hamid Hussain had been posting videos on YouTube promoting his views, and his father Mansoor had been holding private meetings to promote the same causes. “It all started with an effort to translate sermons of Zakir Naik (a fundamentalist Islamic preacher who fled India years ago) into Tamil,” the official said.
Six members of HuT were arrested by the Chennai Police (cybercrime) in a closely coordinated operation by intelligence sleuths. “Central intelligence agencies are aware of developments relating to HuT.” HuT is banned in countries including Bangladesh and the UK.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
