Fourth man involved in conspiracy to UP Shia Waqf Board chief arrested

The Delhi Police said today it has arrested a fourth man from Haryana for allegedly conspiring to kill Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board Chairman Waseem Rizvi at the behest of gangster Dawood Ibrahim.

The police arrested three other men involved in the conspiracy from Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday. A Delhi court on Friday sent them to five-day police custody.

Dharmendra Sharma, the fourth accused, was arrested from Charkhi Dadri district in Haryana yesterday by the Special Cell.

Sharma, 42, was a part of the conspiracy hatched at the behest of Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel to kill Rizvi, the police said.

In January, Rizvi had written letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, claiming that madrassas bred terrorists and had demanded that these Islamic institutions should be closed.

In the letter to the prime minister, Rizvi had demanded that madrassas be replaced by schools affiliated to the CBSE or the ICSE which should offer students Islamic education as an optional subject.

Later that month, he had approached the Lucknow Police saying he had received a threat call from a man claiming to be an aide of Ibrahim.

Rizvi told the Lucknow Police that the caller said he was being threatened for his stand on the madrassa education issue. Rizvi had also supported the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The Delhi Police said it has received information about Chotta Shakeel planning subversive activities in India.

Subsequently, it learnt that a person named Salim Ahmed Ansari, a resident of Bulandshahr, recently returned from Dubai and was in constant touch with Dubai-based underworld operatives.

The police monitored Ansari's activities, which revealed that he and his associates - Abrar and Arif - were planning to kill Rizvi. The trio were arrested on Thursday.

In March, the group had convened a meeting in Delhi and from Delhi they had gone to Lucknow to recce Rizvi's office, the Delhi Police said.

After that, their handlers in Dubai asked them to procure arms and ammunition for the attack on Rizvi.