Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

Lucknow: In a major crackdown, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has picked up seven Kashmiri students from Jamia Arabia Madarsa in Banda district of Bundelkhand region on late Wednesday evening. The arrested students were suspected to be part of a valley-based terror network, however, there has been no official confirmation of the arrests by NIA.

As per the sources, an NIA team had visited the Banda madarsa last month on the suspicion of their links with terrorists activities. After a thorough probe, NIA identified seven Kashmiri students and arrested them. Before making the arrests, the agency officials had grilled the students along with Madarsa coordinator on campus.

According to Madarsa coordinator Habib Ahmad, two NIA officials arrived in madarsa on Wednesday afternoon and conducted a prolonged closed-door interrogation of seven Kashmiri students who were studying Arabi in the institution. The coordinator said that in all nine persons were grilled by NIA officials and that they wanted specific information about an ex-student Tauseef Ahmed who had also learnt Arabi from the same madarsa and hailed from Kashmir. He was arrested by the probe agency a few days back in the valley. Following the interrogation, the NIA officials took all seven students into custody. However, according to highly placed sources, NIA got the clue about Kashmiri students from Tauseef’s diary which had their reference.

Notably, Jamia Arabia Madarsa is situated in Hathaura village under Dehat Kotwali police station area, 16 km from main Banda city. A renowned institution of Islamic education, this madarsa was established way back in 1933.

However, the madarsa aalims and maulvis spoke very high of the students picked by NIA. “They were very bright students of out institution. We could never get the air of any of the links with terror outfits. All seven were very diligent and brilliant students who were completely focused on their curriculum,” said Moahmmad Yunus, a teacher at the Madarsa.