Gujarat Police on Saturday arrested a Maulvi with nefarious fundamentalist ideology from Surat on charges of killing a Hindu leader and threatening several people amid the Lok Sabha elections. Surat Police Commissioner Anupam Singh Gehlot has identified the arrested accused as Maulvi Sohel Abubakr Timol. This Maulvi worked as a manager in a thread factory in Surat city and also gave private tuition to Muslim children for Islamic education. The accused Maulvi was planning a dangerous conspiracy in the country along with his masters sitting in Pakistan and Nepal.
Conspiracy strings connected from Pakistan to Nepal
Gujarat Police said that Maulvi Timol is involved in a conspiracy to kill a leader of a Hindu organization and to threaten the editor-in-chief of Sudarshan News Channel, Telangana BJP MLA Raja Singh and former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma. Police Commissioner Gehlot said, this Maulvi was conspiring with the people of Pakistan and Nepal to kill Hindu Sanatan Sangh National President Upadesh Rana by giving a betel nut worth Rs 1 crore and buying weapons from Pakistan.
Objectionable material found in Maulvi’s phone
Gehlot said that after taking him into custody, we found many objectionable materials in his mobile phone. This also included an offer of a betel nut worth Rs 1 crore for the murder of Upadesh Rana. For this he was in constant touch with persons/numbers from Pakistan and Nepal.
He said Timol was also found involved in threatening Rana in March this year. The accused had used a virtual number from Laos to issue threats to the target by adding numbers from Pakistan and Nepal in his group call.
Used to talk about conspiracy on secure app
Gehlot said that photographs and other information recovered from his phone revealed that the accused Maulvi and his associate were planning to target and threaten Sudarshan TV Editor-in-Chief Suresh Chavhanke, former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma and Hyderabad BJP MLA T. Raja Singh. Were discussing a secure app about giving. For this, all these people were planning to collect money and buy weapons.
Commissioner Gehlot said that these people have extremely fundamentalist ideology and talk about killing Hindu leaders. He had also discussed the murder of Kamlesh Tiwari (Uttar Pradesh president of Hindu Samaj Party, who was murdered in Lucknow on October 18, 2019).
Timol wanted to kill Upadesh Rana soon to spoil the elections.
Their chat records revealed that Timol wanted to kill Rana soon to disturb the communal harmony during the ongoing general elections. The officer said Surat Police is taking help from other agencies to find out if they have more targets in mind.
The crime branch statement said preliminary interrogation of the accused revealed that he was contacted by two persons named Dogar and Shehnaz, who had phone numbers from Pakistan and Nepal respectively. About one and a half years ago, both the persons contacted the accused through social media with phone numbers from Pakistan and Nepal. He instigated the accused by claiming that the prophet has been ridiculed by Hindu organizations in India and this needs to be corrected.
used to use foreign number
According to police, Timol got an international SIM number from Laos to protect his identity and activated a business number on social media. He used this to threaten Rana. Police said that on the chat app, he wrote speeches against Hindu religion and threatened Rana that he too would be killed like Kamlesh Tiwari. Police said a member of his chat group had sent Rana’s photograph along with an offer of Rs 1 crore for his murder.
The statement said the accused used social media to spread communal hatred, uploading pictures of the Indian national flag and making lewd comments in posts or videos about Hinduism. He created false electronic records and ordered weapons from foreign handlers.
The statement also said that the arrested accused was in contact with holders of WhatsApp numbers having codes from different countries like Pakistan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos. He has been booked under sections 153(A), 467, 468 and 471 and 120 (B) of the Indian Penal Code.