Aurangabad, July 18
Ahle Hadees, a fundamentalist Wahabbi sect having Saudi links, is gaining ground in Aurangabad following a ban on the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

Aurangabad, considered to be the most communally sensitive town in Maharashtra, is seeing a large number of Muslim youths join this sect much to the consternation of the community elders. With the hardline clerics of Ahle Hadees getting into disputes with traditional religious leaders here, the Central and the state intelligence agencies have begun taking notice of the sect.

“At least 2,000 young men have joined this sect in the past few years and their number is growing rapidly,” an official with the anti-terrorist cell of the Maharashtra Police said. The number is considered large because the town’s Muslim population is around 5 lakh. According to the official, the ban on SIMI has resulted into a vacuum that is being sought to be filled by Ahle Hadees.

Community leaders themselves admit that former SIMI activists are setting up purely religious organisations ostensibly for creating a purely Islamic state in the town, which was once part of the Nizam’s Hyderabad state.

“The Sufi traditions of Aurangabad’s Muslims are being suppressed and people are being discouraged from worshipping in dargahs,” says Ashfaque Salami, city secretary, Communist Party of India, and vocal campaigner against the new Muslim fundamentalist groups springing up in Aurangabad.

According to him, believers of the sect are exhorted to keep their women in purdah and not to allow them to venture out of homes.

Members of Ahle Hadees sect are also setting up small study circles where members are being indoctrinated against India by giving examples like the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the post-Godhra riots.

Adherents of the sect have also had scuffles with religious leaders at mosques in recent times. “However very little information is available as the things are ‘sorted out’ by the community,” an intelligence official said.

Incidentally, members of Ahle Hadees sect have already been accused of carrying out terror acts. Jalees Ansari, a member of the sect from Aurangabad, was among those accused of setting off bombs in Mumbai in 2002. Though Ansari’s involvement brought the sect under the scanner of intelligence agencies, the information on its activists is still sketchy.

Not everyone is happy with Ahle Hadees and local people are coming forward with information about the functioning of the sect. Salami points out that ties between Hindus and Muslims at the grassroot level in the town, which remained strong despite despite a history of communal riots in the past, are straining.

“Earlier Muslim children would participate in the Ganesh festival and Hindus in Moharrum processions, but not so anymore,” Salami said.