Tamil Nadu police arrests six Hizb-ut-Tahrir activists for anti-national activities

Chennai: Six members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), an international Islamist outfit, have been arrested for anti-national activities such as propaganda against holding elections and democracy, police said on Saturday.

The arrested persons include a man in his fifties, his two sons and three others who were aged between 26 and 33, a senior police official said adding provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) have been invoked against them.

"What began as a modest exercise to seek support from followers of Islam for pan-Islamic rule or the Caliphate appeared to grow strong as number of participants in closed-door meetings increased," he said.

"The group was arrested following their propaganda against conduct of elections, democracy; and participation in the voting exercise and the topic of a propaganda was whether elections were Haram (forbidden by Islamic law) or Halal (lawful under Islamic law) and the verdict was that election and democracy were Haram," the senior official told PTI.

One of the arguments of HuT members against democracy was that democracy and rule of law was man-made and hence subject to change and not perfect. However, divine law does not fall into such a category and it is supreme.

The arrested persons include Hameed Hussain, who holds a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering and till 2021. He had been teaching engineering in colleges. Hussain's father Ahmed Mansoor and brother Abdul Rehman and three others --Mohammed Maurice, Khader Nawaz Sherif and Ahmed Ali-- were also held. All the six men are natives of Chennai.

Hameed Hussain has been posting videos on YouTube advocating his ideology and his father Mansoor held private meetings to further the same cause.

"It all began with an initiative to translate Zakir Naik's (fundamentalist Islamic preacher who fled India years ago) preachings into Tamil," the official said.

The six HuT members were arrested by Chennai police (cyber crime) in an operation closely coordinated by intelligence sleuths. "Central intelligence agencies are aware of developments related to HuT."

The HuT is a banned organisation in countries including Bangladesh and the United Kingdom.