By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Ahmedabad: Renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Abdul Qavi who was arrested Sunday evening from Delhi airport by a joint operation of Gujarat ATS and Delhi police has been presented before a local POTA court in Bhadra at Monday evening.
Founder and rector of Madrasa Ashraful Uloom Maulana Qavi was well known religious figure in Hyderabad, his elder brother Mufti Abdul Mughni is the Hyderabad city president of Jamaitul Ulema Hind.
Maulana Abdul Qavi
Ahmedabad district crime branch requested the court to remand Maulana Qavi to their custody for 21 days. In their remand application submitted to Additional Principal Judge Geeta Gopi, CB cited several reasons for Maulana Qavi’s remand, 1)‘To find out more about the terror network’, 2) ‘He sent several youngsters to Pakistan camps for terror training’, 3) ‘Took part in proxy war against India with the help of ISI’.
But Maulana Qavi’s lawyer B M Gupta objected in handing over long custody to crime branch.
After hearing arguments presented by CB and defense lawyer, judge remanded Maulana Qavi to 14 days police custody which ends on April 7.
Maulana Qavi has been chargesheeted in DCB I-CR No. 6 of 2003, known as ‘ISI greater conspiracy case’ in which dozens of Muslim youth were arrested under POTA from Hyderabad by Gujarat police on the allegation of conspiring to assassinate Chief Minister now BJP P.M. candidate Narendra Modi, than Home Minister L.K. Advani and VHP leader Praveen Togadia.
The case was basically a proxy of Gujarat police to run their own parallel investigation in Haren Pandya murder case which CBI was handling.
Almost everyone who was accused and arrested in this case including radical cleric Maulana Naseeruddin has been acquitted by the court.
Maulana Qavi till now was not touched by security agencies in this case, however his nephew Mufti Asharf Ali rector of Madrasa Sabeebul Falah was arrested by Gujarat police in 2007 but he too was soon acquitted in the conspiracy case by the session court.
According to charge sheet of DCB-6 case, which TCN has copy of, Maulana Abdul Qavi has been made accused no.42 in this case with a specific charge of providing shelter to alleged Narendra Modi assassination conspirators in
Hyderabad and also allegedly helped them to escape to Bangladesh.
This case was monitored by than Asst. Commissioner of Police now snoop gate fame G.L. Singhal and investigated by Narendra Amin now in jail for Sohrabuddin fake encounter case and also chargesheeetd by CBI in Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.
Although Gujarat police today in court claimed that notices were served to Maulana Qavi and an arrest warrant was issued, but his elder brother Mufti Abdul Mughni told TCN that no official information was ever received from Gujarat police in this case.
Mufti Abdul Mughni also told TCN that even last year Maulana Qavi went to Gujarat to attend a conference in Surat. Police didn’t touch him then, so question is why now just before elections?
Maulana Abdul Qavi’s lawyer B M Gupta has termed the police action against his client as a “political stunt“.
“The reasons given by DCB in the court completely lack credibility. It’s a 10—year old case and a majority of the accused caught earlier were acquitted by either the POTA court or the High Court. My client is a reputed Muslim cleric. A warrant against him was issued in 2004 by a local court here but nobody knows why the police never took any action for the last ten years,” Mr. Gupta told PTI.