The suspected al Qaeda terrorist arrested from Cuttack, had links with a terrorist involved in the attack on Glasgow International Airport in 2007, Odisha police said today.
Md Abdur Rahman (37), the suspected terrorist of al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), was arrested from Paschimakachha village in Jagatpur area of Cuttack district early yesterday by Delhi police jointly with Odisha police.
"The Delhi police, during interrogation has come to know about the link of Rahman with Kafeel, a Bengaluru-based youth, who succumbed to burns in a failed attempt to ram an explosive-laden jeep into the Glasgow International Airport in Scotland in 2007," R P Sharma, Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Commissioner of Police told reporters here.
Rahman, he said, used to spend most of his time outside Odisha and came under the police scanner after Mohammand Asif, one of the founder members of AQIS, revealed his name.
Though Rahman has no criminal record and runs a madrasa at Tangi near Cuttack, the preliminary verification has revealed that he was involved in an incident at Sahi Masjid inside the Killa Fort in Cuttack in February, 2011.
"Police had arrested him and framed a charge-sheet. The case is now sub judice," the police commissioner said.
Rahman had a dispute with the local people near Killa Fort over establishment of a madrasa in Cuttack. He, however, shifted the plan to set up a madrasa in Tangi area after failing to get place in Cuttack city, sources said.
The Commissionerate Police are presently verifying the madrasa where around 80 children in the age group of 10-15 years, mostly from Jharkhand, are studying.
Besides, police have been trying to collect information about Rahman's other close associates and their modus operandi in Cuttack and other districts in the state, Sharma said.
Three associates of Rahman, including a doctor have been picked up for for interrogation. However, no one was so far arrested, the police said.
The madrasa is run privately and the government has asked the district education officer (DEO) to verify whether it has proper documents, Odisha School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra said.
"The DEO will submit an inquiry report. If any illegality is found, the madrasa will be shut down," Mishra said.
A report from neighbouring Kendrapara district said 13
madrasas functioning in Kendrapara township have been put under police scanner since Rahman's arrest.
Police are verifying the records of these madrasas and ascertaining whether they are linked to any sort of ani-national activities, said Kendrapara Additional Superintendent of Police, Ramesh Chandra Mohanty.
"Rahman arrested yesterday studied in a madrasa in Kendrapara town before leaving for higher Islamic studies," a police officer said.
Cuttack District Child Protection officer Pragati Mohanty said the Tangi madrasa was not registered and living conditions in it is not good. The food served to the students was not proper and they have been starving for last two days.
"We have communicated with the chief district medical officer for conducting proper health checkup of the students," he said.
Stating that they are verifying documents on whose instructions the children were admitted at the madrasa and lodged in illegal custody as the institution is unregistered.
"We are trying to coordinate with the states to relocate and rehabilitate the children," Mohanty said.
Mohammad Farooq Qasim, principal of Jamia Ashrafful Ullam Madrasa where Rahman studied, said he was brilliant at academics, besides being obedient and disciplined. "We never thought in the wildest imagination that he would turn into a radical and an anti-national.
