84 persons arrested for ‘jihadi activities’ in Assam since BJP took over in 2016

Sarma told the Assembly that the arrested persons were part of multiple Islamic terror groups

Since 2016, when the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in the state, 84 persons have been arrested for “jihadi activities” in Assam, the government informed the Assembly on Monday.

In a written reply to Congress MLA Debabrata Saikia’s questions, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who also holds the home portfolio, told the Assembly that the arrested persons were part of Islamic terror groups such as Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Hizbul Mujahideen and Ansarullah Banga Team (ABT), a banned terror group in neighbouring Bangladesh. According to the written statement, the groups have links to Bangladesh.

Sarma stated that 10 of the arrested persons were associated with madrasas. “These persons delivered speeches in mosques, madrasas and other religious meets to motivate Muslim youth and others to join in the jihadi activities. They used sophisticated conversation apps such as Omemo and Blabber for end-to-end communication,” the chief minister said.

The 10 were identified as Saiful Islam, Mamunur Rashid, Mustafa alias Mufti Mustafa, Abdus Sobahan, Jalaluddin Sheikh, Abdus Sobahan, Mufti Hafizur Rahman, Ajmal Hussain, Akbar Ali and Abdul Kalam Azad, the chief minister informed the assembly.

Read | 1,561 Assam youths joined militancy, 7,935 quit it since 2016: CM

Saiful is a Bangladeshi national, while the others hail from Barpeta, Goalpara, Bongaigaon and Morigaon districts of Assam. The districts have sizeable Muslim population.

The state police had earlier said that ABT was an affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and was trying to set up its base in eastern India.

The information was furnished in the Assembly at a time when the BJP-led government was carrying out a “crackdown against jihadi activities”; the government even demolished three madrasas in Morigaon, Barpeta and Bongaigaon district since August.

A fourth madrasa, in a riverine village in Goalpara district, was demolished by villagers after one of the teachers was allegedly found having links with “jihadi groups”.

Madrasa demolitions by the BJP-led government, however, invited anger of the Opposition parties who questioned why educational institutions were demolished for alleged terror links of a teacher.

“Let the government take action against the individual if they have done anything illegal. But the educational institutions cannot be demolished. This is illegal and unjust. The BJP is doing this to create terror among the Muslims and thereby force them to vote for BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” Lok Sabha member from Dhubri (Assam) and Chief of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), Badruddin Ajmal said on August 31. The Congress also slammed the madrasa demolitions.

BJP countered Ajmal saying that both AIUDF and Congress were trying to protect the “jihadis”.