india

Updated: Jun 23, 2014 00:45 IST

Two terror suspects — Haidar Ali and Mujibullah — arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on May 21 on the charges of executing serial blasts in Bodhgaya and Patna — visited Qadian in Punjab on a reconnaissance mission with a plan to target a congregation of Ahmadiyya community in the near future, counter terror officials told HT.

“Just 10 days before being arrested by the NIA, Haidar and Mujibullah had visited Qadian in Punjab. The Ahmadiyya community was headquartered in Qadian before partition of the country and it is still a big centre of the community. Both Haidar and Mujibullah, alleged to be operatives of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were planning to visit Qadian again between May 25 and May 27. Any plan to target Ahmadiyyas here reflects a growing influence of Pakistan-based terror outfits on SIMI operatives who are already proponents of conservative Islam,” said a counter terror official requesting anonymity.

“Qadian is around one hour drive from Amritsar. Haidar and Mujibullah are yet to explain what exactly they were planning to do there. But we suspect that it was recee mission for a future strike there,” added the official.

According to the official website of Ahmadiyya community, it believes that the long-awaited Messiah has come in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian.

Due to their belief, Ahmadiyyas have been officially declared non-Muslims in Pakistan. Terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba’s patron and chief of its front organisation Jammat-ud-Dawa in Pakistan, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed has targeted the community in many of his speeches.