1 More Held for Plot to Kill Hindu Outfits’ Leaders

Hinduism-is-not-a-ReligionCOIMBATORE: The anti-terror team of the city police achieved another breakthrough by arresting one more suspect in the alleged plot to murder high profile Hindu outfit leaders at Thudiyalur, near here in the early hours of Friday.

In mid-August, six persons were arrested for allegedly plotting murders of two prominent leaders of the Hindu outfits. Ever since then police had been hot on the trail of A Shahul Hamid alias ‘Vaikari’ Shahul (27), of Idinthakarai in Tirunelveli district. Their search ended on Friday when Shahul was picked up by the Special Intelligence Cell of the city police from Thudiyalur. Sources said that the SIC had been tracing his movements across the State before finally locating him.

In August, six persons – N Saddam Hussein (24), A Nowsath (30), Y Rahmathullah (24), M Abdul Rasheed, H Mohammed Azharuddin (27), and Syed Abdul Rahman Umari (30) – were arrested in connection with the alleged plot to murder president of Indu Makkal Katchi Arjun Sampath and Moogambikai Mani, the Hindu Munnani speaker.

Police claimed that Shahul had ties with the assassins of K P Suresh Kumar, a functionary of the Hindu Munnani and the Tiruvallur district unit’s secretary.

A high-ranking official from the SIC said that Shahul Hamid, along with Kaja Mohideen, the prime accused in the murder of Suresh Kumar, had been planning the murders since January 2014. After the murder of Suresh, the alleged assassins plotted to carry out a string of high-profile ‘hits’ on Hindu leaders across the State. However, after the arrests of two persons in the Suresh Kumar murder case, Kaja Mohideen and the others went underground. “During this period, Shahul Hamid, who was party to the conspiracy, had delivered material resources such as money to Mohideen,” said the official.

The Selvapuram police inspector, Ravi Kumar, to whom Shahul Hamid was handed over, said that Hamid had conducted recce on the house of Arjun Sampath in late July. He also revealed that Shahul Hamid had been booked under sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 505 (ii) (statement conducing to public mischief) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between different groups) of the IPC. He has since been remanded in the Coimbatore Central Prison.

The police commissioner, A K Viswanathan, told Express that though Shahul Hamid was not a ‘hardened’ extremist, he had been a party to the various terror-related cases across the State.

Source: The New Indian Express