Surat Police arrested a Muslim cleric, Maulvi Sohel Abubakr Timol, on Saturday (4 May) for planning to kill the leader of a Hindu organization and threatening the chief editor of a television channel, as well as Telangana BJP leaders, including an MLA and a former spokesperson.
The police found that Timol was in contact with individuals from Pakistan and Nepal who incited him by claiming that Hindu organizations in Bharat were disrespecting Muhammad. Timol, who is 27 years old and teaches in a madrasa, was planning to offer Rs 1 crore and procure weapons from Pakistan to kill the leader of the Hindu organization.
He was detained in Surat’s Chowk Bazar area, where his mobile phone was checked, revealing conversations with people from Pakistan and Nepal. He had also received a SIM card from Laos to communicate with his handlers.
The accused used social media to spread communal hatred, posting photos of Bharat’s national flag and making derogatory comments about Hindu Dharma. He also forged documents to order arms from his foreign handlers. Timol was in contact with WhatsApp numbers from different countries like Pakistan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and Laos.
Timol was also found to be conspiring to murder the national president of Hindu Sanatan Sangh Upadesh Rana and had threatened the chief editor of Sudarshan TV, Suresh Chavhanke, political leader Nupur Sharma, and Hyderabad MLA Raja Singh. He was highly radicalized and threatened to murder Upadesh Rana like Kamlesh Tiwari was murdered. Kamlesh, the Uttar Pradesh-based president of the Hindu Samaj Party, was brutally murdered by Islamists in 2019.
Timol was booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code related to the vilification of religion, forgery, and criminal conspiracy, as well as the Information Technology Act. Preliminary investigations suggest that his handlers, Dogar from Pakistan and Shehnaz from Nepal, had contacted him on social media a year and a half ago, inciting him against Hindu organizations in Bharat.
(Featured Image Source: India TV)
