Lucknow: A team from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday questioned a cleric, Mufti Khalid Nadvi, after an eight-hour search of his residence in Jhansi in connection with allegations of online radicalisation. As the NIA tried to take Nadvi away for questioning, locals, including women and children, gathered outside the cleric's house to resist the move. It was only after senior police and administrative officials intervened that Nadvi was taken by the NIA for questioning at the police lines. Apart from Jhansi, NIA teams also swooped down on Bareilly, Deoband and Saharanpur.
The searches at Nadvi's house were part of an NIA operation spread across 19 locations in Assam, Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Gujarat and West Bengal.
The searches are being conducted in connection with the recent arrest of a cleric in Delhi by the NIA on charges of heading a radicalisation programme being run by the banned terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
Several incriminating documents and electronic devices, including mobile phones, pen drives, CDs and hard disks, were seized during the searches carried out at multiple locations.
The searches were conducted on the premises of suspects and close aides of an accused, Sheikh Sultan Salah Uddin Ayubi, a JeM operative who was arrested for his incriminatory role in the case.