NEW DELHI, June 29 Ghouse Mohammad, one of the two men arrested for the gruesome murder of the 48-year old tailor in Udaipur has links with the Sunni Islamist Oganisation Dawat-e-Islami headquartered in Karachi and had visited Pakistan in 2014, the Rajasthan director general of police ML Lather said on Wednesday.
Kanhaiya Lal was hacked to death on Tuesday afternoon by Mohammad Riyaz Akhtari and Ghouse Mohammad, who captured the act on their mobile phone and later posed with knives suspected to have been used in the hate crime that has shocked the country. The two were intercepted by police officers hours later in Rajsamand, a little over 150km from Udaipur.
“Initial investigations revealed that the two accused – Mohammad Riyaz Akhtari (38) and Ghouse Mohammad (39) – have links with Karachi-based Dawat-e-Islami, and Ghouse Mohammad visited Karachi in this connection in 2014, Lather told reporters on Wednesday. He said the outfit also has its offices in Mumbai and Delhi.
Internal police sources said the police have found at least 10 Pakistan-based contact numbers Ghouse Mohammad’s mobile. The due had watched many ISIS videos and made multiple calls to Pakistan before murdering the tailor. The other accused has gone to Nepal twice and was in touch with a few terror groups. He also had connections in Dubai, sources said.
Lather also added that the police have picked up three more men who are known to be close to Riyaz and Ghouse and may have played a role in the conspiracy. “Other than the two prime suspects, three others from Udaipur who were closely associated with them have also been detained by the police,” he said after the state police invoked provisions of the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and handed over the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
The state police chief said Mohammad Riyaz, who works as a welder, made the knife used in the crime about four to five years back but did not elaborate.
Hours before formal orders to transfer the case to NIA were issued, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot announced that the special investigation team was probing the links of the killers of a tailor in Udaipur with radical elements in India and abroad and ordered the state police to invoke sections of UAPA against the accused.
Looking at the case from all perspectives and on the directions of the chief minister, it was decided to consider it an act of terror, Lather said.
Senior officials in the union ministry of home affairs indicated last evening that the Centre intended to hand over the case to NIA after the accused directly threatened Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the video claiming responsibility for the attack on Kanhaiya Lal.
Lather also responded to criticism that the police did not take adequate steps when the tailor complained on June 15 that he was being stalked by 4-5 people and that his life was in danger. The station house officer failed to assess the gravity of the situation and effective action was not taken. “The assistant sub-inspector was suspended yesterday, and today the SHO has been suspended for negligence,” he said.
(Manas Dasgupta)
