Author:
Publication: The Times of India,
New Delhi
Date: May 4, 2001
The Union government has imposed
a ban on an obscure Hyderabad-based sect, Deendar Anjuman, on the ground
that the organisation had engineered bomb blasts in churches in Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa between May and July last year.
Asked why the government had taken
so long to impose the ban, a home ministry spokesman told The Times of
India on Thursday, "It takes time because first a thorough investigation
is done and a prima race case is made out. The ban is imposed only after
consultations with the states concerned."
The ban comes barely days after
a US government report indicted the Vajpayee government for not taking
action to punish those responsible for attacks on Christians and other
religious minorities.
Deendar Anjuman was fomenting communal
tension and has links with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, the
home ministry official claimed. In short, its activities all added up to
"being prejudicial to India's security," he contended.
Curiously, though the Centre believes
the organisation as a whole is responsible for the blasts - and not just
some of its 'misguided followers', as Deendar leaders claim - it has not
yet moved to file a criminal case against any of the sect's leaders.
Leading functionaries of the Anjuman,
which has its office in Asifnagar (Hyderabad), were not aware of the ban
till Thursday afternoon. When told, they said it would not deter them from
carrying on with her religious activities.
"We are not anti-nationals," Anjuman's
secretary Syed Siddiq Hussain told this paper. "The organisation's name
was implicated in such activities because of some people who were not our
office-bearers. We have assisted the Crime Investigation Department (CID)
in its probe of the serial bomb-blasts."
The organisation was engaged in
distribution of anti-Christian literature, in espionage activities, and
was "having the potential to disturb peace and the secular fabric of the
country," the home ministry spokesman alleged.
He claimed the Anjuman had "links
in Mardan, in Pakistan, and has been organising a band of disgruntled Muslim
youths in India into a militant outfit for launching jehad (holy war) with
the avowed objective of total Islamisation of the subcontinent."
Meanwhile, the Anjuman has vowed
to continue its mission of uniting all faiths. Though the ban was imposed
on April 27 under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act by the Union government,
the state government received the order only on Wednesday. The police,
however, are yet to get a copy. "A notification about the ban will be issued
in two days," director-general of police H.J. Dora told The Times of India
Thursday.
Significantly, Dora said the state
police did not recommend the ban; the decision was taken by the Centre
on its own.
The decision to ban the outfit follows
a meeting in Bangalore between the Centre and representatives of police
forces of Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka, home ministry officials say.
The meeting stressed there was a "grand design on the part of the ISI"
to foment trouble.
