Author: George Iype
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: August 17, 2000
Welcome to the strange
world of the Deendar Anjuman, the followers of which wear the green turban
of Muslim saints, the saffron robes of Hindu swamis and beards like the
Sikhs.
The 12,000-odd Anjuman
members spread across the two southern Indian states continue to dress
in an eclectic fashion, which their guru Deendar Channabasaveshwara Siddiqui
adopted seven decades ago. But many these days lament that the police
are harassing them for no mistake of theirs.
"We were living happily.
The police arrested my husband simply because we were Deendar followers,"
complained Waheduunisa, wife of Syed Khalid Uz Zaman, who was picked up
soon after the bomb blasts in churches.
Salman Quereshi, a 65-year-old
ardent follower of the Sufi order, claims that orthodox Muslims and fundamentalists
who feel threatened because of the Anjuman's social service activities
are behind the smear campaign against the sect.
"Our religious order
has been in existence for the last seven decades. How come that we
are branded anti-nationals and pro-Pakistanis in July 2000?" Quereshi asked.
"It is not us but the
fanatic Hindu groups that have been attacking and killing Christian priests
and missionaries in the country," he alleged.
SOME 60 kilometres away
from Vijayawada lies Nuzvid, a nondescript village. Here landlords
still flourish under the zamindari system, while the poor live like slaves.
It was in this little village that the Anjuman allegedly hatched the conspiracy
to set off blasts in places of worship.
The epicentre of that
conspiracy was allegedly Zaman's house. The people in the village
do not know much about Zaman's family; they moved in from the nearby Tiruvur
town just three months before the blasts.
"Zaman used to visit
the local co-operative bank as an auditor. We respected him because
he was one of the few educated men in our village," says Vijayabhaskar
Reddy, a local social activist.
That was apparently Zaman's
cover. He had been working hard ever since the Anjuman's Pakistan-based
spiritual head, Zia-ul-Hassan, appointed him the head of the sect in south
India.
Hassan's orders to Zaman
ran something like this: Prepare India for jihad by creating hatred among
religious communities and disrupting the communication system in the country.
Zaman was further instructed to disturb the transport system so as to cut
off north India from the south.
The police suspect that
Zaman visited Peshawar a number of times, was trained by the Inter-Services
Intelligence and imported thousands of fake Rs 500 notes to India.
Zaman began his mission by recruiting Anjuman members to carry out the
deadly attacks on religious places across southern states. In March,
Hassan's son Zahid Pasha came down from Pakistan to Nuzvid to finalise
the targets for the attacks, and Anjuman adherents from Hyderabad, Vijayawada,
Nanded, Khammam, Hubli, Ramdurg and Bangalore drove down to the little
village for consultation.
The Anjuman began its
'Islamisation of India' in February with several robberies and dacoities
in rural Andhra Pradesh. In March when United States President Bill
Clinton visited Hyderabad, a handful of its activists took out a protest
march in the city with placards saying 'The President of America should
accept Islam, which guarantees world peace.'
The police ignored the
rally. But zealous Anjuman members had by then chalked out plans
to plant explosives in churches and at gospel meetings.
THE police say in the
last five years Anjuman activists have converted at least 5,000 villagers
in and around Nuzvid.
"We have evidence that
Pakistan's ISI has pumped in huge amounts of money to lure poor Hindu villagers
into the Islamic fold with the help of Anjuman activists," an intelligence
source said.
He added that the ISI
has been using the hawala channel to transfer money from Pakistan to Anjuman
followers.
Ever since the blasts,
Anjuman followers have been hounded by the police and local villagers.
"My family has been ardent followers of Deendar. Is it a crime to
profess the religion you believe in?" asked Chamansaab, whose son Meersaab
Chamansaab Koujalgi was arrested by the police.
Koujalgi, one of the
main accused in the bomb blasts, is an active Anjuman member, and is said
to be close to Zaman and Pasha. Chamansaab, this 78-year old Anjuman
follower of Batkurki village in Karnataka's Belgaum district, does not
believe his son is involved in the blasts. But his villagers have
already ostracised him, wife Sultanbi and their four sons.
"They are not followers
of Islam. The Anjuman people are mad and their love is for Pakistan,
not for India," said Mohammad Rafi, a local Muslim. "Their teachings
do not conform to the Holy Koran."
Villagers of Nuzvid and
Batkurki say that many Anjuman members have become rich overnight.
"We do not know where the money come from. But some of the members
who had not owned even 10 cents of land today drive Tata Sumos," said Prakash
Shetty, a landlord in Batakurki.
It was in Batakurki that
Siddique founded the Deendar Anjuman. Late last month, investigations
led the police to two, unkempt graves in a remote corner of the village.
After questioning many Anjuman members, the police say the graves belong
to two of Siddiqui's four wives: Siddiqua Hajra Begum who died on 10-04-1969,
and Zainabee Sahiba who died on 13-05-1922.
In Hubli, the centre
of Anjuman activities when Siddiqui was alive, not many people know anything
about the sect. The city has no relics of the sect either.
But on its outskirts, there is a one-room office of Anjuman, which the
police have sealed following the church blasts.
Locals alleged the Anjuman's
Hubli officer-bearers -- Kiremath and Munner Mulla -- are "Muslim fanatics."
Currently, both are in police custody.
"They were trying to
propagate the Deendar theology with such zest that some Hindus joined the
sect in the last few years," said Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Anugrah
Kumar.
When the Anjuman's activities
were exposed, VHP leaders launched their own investigation into conversions.
"We do not think many Hindus have joined the sect. But we are trying
to find out whether the Muslim sect, like the Christian missionaries, are
also indulging in forcible conversions," says Kumar.
But Siddique Hussain,
the Anjuman's information secretary in Hyderabad and one of the grandsons
of the sect's founder, claimed that the religious order is "clean and holy."
"Ours is a unique Muslim
religious organisation that is committed to promote peace and communal
harmony," he said.
Hussain blamed the Anjuman's
current troubles on "the mismanagement of our Vijayawada unit."
"Our information is that
some members of our Vijayawada unit independently engaged in some anti-social
activities which we do not approve of," he said. "None of them now
belongs to the Deendar Anjuman."
But with more Anjuman
followers being arrested, neither the investigating agencies nor the public
are ready to believe such claims. In the eyes of the police, local
people and orthodox Muslims, the Deendar Anujman is a dreaded group that
exists just for Pakistan.
