Pakistan preacher, wife & in-laws lived in Bengaluru for 6 years using Hindu names: Police

Bengaluru: Bengaluru police have arrested a Pakistani preacher, his wife and her parents, who allegedly lived under Hindu names on the southern outskirts of the city for six years. 

Rashid Ali Siddiqui (48), his wife Ayesha Hanif (38) and her parents Mohammed Hanif (73) and Rubina (61) are accused of illegally residing in Rajapura, near Jigani, using the aliases Shankar Sharma, Asha Rani, Ram Babu Sharma and Rani Sharma, respectively. 

They have been booked under IPC sections related to cheating, forgery and others and the Passports Act. 

Acting on intelligence inputs, Jigani police raided the family's residence around 5.30 pm on Sunday and discovered that they were packing to leave. 

Siddiqui, who identified himself as Sharma, told the police that he had been living in the area since 2018, and showed his Indian passport and Aadhaar card. Police also found that the other three possessed passports and Aadhaar cards under Hindu names. 

However, what caught the police's attention was a mural in the house that read ‘Mehdi Foundation International Jashan-e-Younus', and photographs of Muslim clerics, according to the FIR. 

Siddiqui later confessed that he was from Liaquatabad, Karachi, and that his wife and her family were from Lahore, police said. 

Crossed over to India in 2014

Further questioning revealed that Siddiqui married Ayesha in 2011 in an "online ceremony" while she and her parents were in Bangladesh. 

Siddiqui claimed that he later moved to Bangladesh to flee “religious persecution" in Pakistan. He served as a preacher and told the police that Mehdi Foundation International, which is based in London and promotes "the Goharian Philosophy of Divine Love", covered his expenses, the FIR notes. 

Three years later, Siddqui was attacked by Muslim religious leaders in Bangladesh. Following this, he contacted Parvez, a member of the Mehdi Foundation’s Indian wing, who advised him to come to India. 

Siddiqui, along with his wife, parents-in-law and relatives Zainab Noor and Mohammed Yasin, crossed into India from Bangladesh via Malda, West Bengal, by paying some agents. 

They initially lived in old Delhi and obtained duplicate passports, Aadhaar, PAN card and driving licences with changed names. In Delhi, Siddiqui preached the Mehdi Foundation International's teachings. 

After meeting two Bengaluru residents named Wasim and Altaf in 2018 during a visit to Nepal, Siddiqui decided to move to Bengaluru after they invited him to preach in the city. While Altaf paid his house rent, their Aadhaar cards and bank accounts and passports of Siddiqui’s parents-in-law were registered in Bengaluru, as per the FIR. 

"After coming here, I used to call my relatives in Pakistan," Siddiqui told the police, who are verifying his claims. 

The incident follows the recent arrests of Mohammed Yasin alias Kartik Sharma, his wife Zainab Noor alias Neha Sharma, Altaf Ahmed and his wife Fathima Gohar in Chennai. They were arrested while returning from Bangladesh after "meeting their religious leader". 

The teachings

Mehdi Foundation International was established as RAGS International by Ra Riaz Gohar Shahi in 1980 and renamed in 2002, according to its website. 

Shahi claims to be Mehdi, a messianic figure in Islam who will appear at the end of times. 

The organisation "preaches and practises divine love... does not associate itself with any religion, (and) respects all religions and all divinely ordained scriptures." 

Headquartered in London, it has centres in Nepal, Canada, the US, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Greece.