Alleged terror rings in Hyderabad are being busted in new areas,unlike in the past when only Saidabad was said to be a den of radical elements. Chandrayangutta,a tranquil,lower middle-class neighbourhood from where college student Obaid-ur Rehman was arrested by Bangalore police last week,is apparently one such hotbed. Other areas under watch are Malakpet and Shivarampalli. Officials say that as Saidabad is monitored with a magnifying glass by police and investigation agencies,many radical elements including former SIMI activists have moved to Chandrayangutta and Malakpet. So far,all of Hyderabads alleged terror-linked elements were identified with Saidabad,which is home to the family of Nasiruddin,the fiery cleric who was acquitted by a Gujarat court in the murder of former minister Haren Pandya. His three sons are in various jails in the country in terror cases. The founder of the radical organization Darsgah Jihad,Shahadat Shaik Mehboob Ali who died in 2011,too lived here. So does Abdul Aleem Islahi,who runs a madrasa for women here and whose son Mohtassim Billa was once arrested for links with terror groups. Saidabad was like a magnet for radical elements. SIMIs Safdar Nagori,Mufti Abu Basher were regular visitors, says an official of Crime Central Stations SIT. It was since the arrest of Nasiruddin and his three sons,followed by that of many others allegedly linked with terror groups,that Saidabad has been under constant monitoring. The residential-cum-industrial areas of Chandrayangutta,where the Defence Electronics Research Lab of DRDO is located,has allegedly become the recruiting ground for the Popular Front of India and terror groups. Here in the lanes and bylanes of Hafizbabanagar,Barkas,Jehangirabad and other areas,youths are being allegedly lured with online lectures and documentaries about alleged atrocities on Muslims. Obaid-ur Rehman,21,who is related to Nasiruddin,is said to be a product of the new networks of single-person cells. Deputy commissioner of police Akun Sabharwal says the PFI had been seen to be active in Chandrayangutta in the past too. Some PFI activists were living in Chandrayangutta and were picked up in the past. I think the old city is contiguous that way and one particular area cannot be pinpointed, Sabharwal says. Mohammed Lateef Khan,general secretary of the Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee,Hyderabad,says,While the decline of radical leadership in Saidabad was good for the community,it left a vacuum that should have been taken over by moderate leaders, Khan says. That is not happening and probably youths are being guided down the wrong path. If Obaid-ur Rehman really had links with terror groups as police claim,then youths are still falling to into the trap. TROUBLE ZONE KHALISTAN Investigation agencies say operatives of terror groups such as the Khalistan Commando Force have been linked to Nanded before. Nanded has a large Sikh population due to its famous Sachkhand Gurdwara where,since the early 1990s,many alleged terror operatives have headed for shelter or for prayers,police say HINDU TERROR It was in Nanded that Maharshtras Hindu terror plot surfaced. Activists Himanshu Panse and Naresh Rajkondwar died in Nanded while the former was assembling a bomb in the latters home in April 2006. Nanded has frequently seen tension between Hindus and Muslims. ISLAMIC GROUPS The Deendar Anjuman and SIMI,or Students Islamic Movement of India,too have had a presence inNanded. Two low-intensity blasts,one at the Vazirabad police station and the other at Sharda Theatre,in 2003 were allegedly executed by the Deendar Anjuman. POLICE TAKE Sandeep Bishnoi,inspector general of police,says poverty and unemployment in Nanded could be reason behind youths turning radical. There is a need to improve the intelligence-gathering system. We have sensitised district SPs to be on the watch for clues. We are working on youths gone missing from the district. Also,we would like people to share information about suspicious persons; names of those sharing such information will be kept a secret.
