Assam pulls down madrassa run by ‘Qaida fund-handler’

Guwahati: The Assam government on Thursday demolished a madrassa run by an alleged fund-handler of al-Qaida in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) affiliate Ansarul Islam at Moriabari in Morigaon district. Mufti Mustafa, the AQIS member in question and teacher of the madrassa, was arrested on July 27.
This Morigaon module is the fifth module of AQIS to have been busted by the Assam Police with the help of central agencies in the last five months in the state.It was slain al-Qaida head Ayman al-Zawahiri who had announced the formation of AQIS in 2014.
Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said busting these five modules of AQIS “proves that the state is definitely on their (AQIS) radar.” He added that the state has become a hotbed of “jihadi activities.”
As many 28 AQIS members have been arrested, which includes a Bangladeshi national. He is one of the six AQIS leaders to have entered the state in 2016 for radicalization. The remaining five are still at large.
Sarma said, “The hub of all activities of all the five modules of AQIS busted so far in the last five months have been found to be in madrassas. It may hurt a section of people but I am not generalizing. Wherever we have caught the AQIS sleeper cells, they have been found to have links with a madrassa or have been imams in masjids.”
The CM added, “My appeal to the peace-loving Muslim population of the state is that do not entertain any ‘imam’ if he is from outside your area and instead report about him to the nearest police station.