35 men of Hizb ut-Tahrir held in Islamabad

[Kursed]

So you were worried about Xe, Dyna Corp and the rest. Guess, who else has been infiltrating your ranks and in which shape and form.

ISLAMABAD: The Capital police have arrested 35 people belonging to banned organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, including their key leaders, and booked them under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), police said.

The activists of the banned group were busy in a secret meeting at a house in F-8/3 when the police raided the place on the information of an intelligence agency.

Highly-educated people, including computer engineers, educational institutions’ head, businessmen, telecom engineers, students of different institutions, environment scientists, civil engineers and an officer of a US-Aid project were among the arrested activists of the Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The police have recovered hate literature and objectionable material during a search of the house.

Inspector General of Police Islamabad Syed Kaleem Imam when contacted by this correspondent confirmed the arrest of the Hizb ut-Tahrir activists and said that the government had banned the outfit and barred its activities but the organisation was involved in creating unrest among the public through the SMS and statements. He said the activists had been charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Police sources said a team of the Margala Police Station, headed by SHO Ghulam Baqar, raided house no 9, street-8, F-8/3, and arrested 35 people, including kingpins of the Hizb ut-Tahrir outfit identified as Bilal Awan (Engineer of a Research Organisation), Ch. Waqar (Software Engineer), Muhammad Imran (Principal of an institution), Junaid Khan (Telecom Engineer), Sarfaraz Khalid (Computer Engineer), Usman Jamshed (Telecom Processing Manager), Rizwan Aleem (a PhD student of the GIK University), Zakar Azim (student UET Taxila), Adnan Qureshi (a telecom engineer), Abid Mehmood (an officer of a US Aid project) and an American national Muhammad Shuaib (Civil Engineer).

The police will produce the detained activists before a judge on Sunday for further proceeding of the case, the police said, adding that the court would hand them over to the police on physical remand for further investigation or sent them to jail on a judicial remand.

NNI adds: Meanwhile, 20 Afghans and Tajiks have been arrested from two passenger coaches in the Kashmore district of Sindh on Saturday

According to reports, during vehicles checking near the Sindh-Punjab border, the police arrested 17 Afghans and three Tajik nationals. All the detained foreigners had no traveling documents.

Source: The News

[towelie]

heh. They tried to recruit me once. I got a couple of free KFC meals off them, then left

Their modus operandi is to poach more educated individuals, preferably students. They never preach to the "awam". They've been pretty successful at evading detection.

While their activities in the UK are questionable, I always thought their presence in Pakistan was benign. But then again, their strategy of "putting people in key positions then waiting for the right moment to seize power" could be why they've been invisible so far.....

[Kursed]

How do they 'recruit' people? Mind giving up some details.

[towelie]

I was taking classes for a course, and one of the instructors was a UK born Pakistani, who was now settled in Lahore. So he invited us all to KFC one day, and during the meal started discussing politics. A couple of days later those of us who were more involved in the discussion were invited to his place for lunch.

There, the discussion again took a turn towards the plight of Muslims around the world and then they came out about their affiliation with HT. There was the usual discussion about the reasons for decline of the "Ummah".

Couple of weeks later : another lunch invitation. This time the hardcore stuff started. We were shown a whole album of pictures of dead men, women and children from Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya etc. Infact these images were always on display during all their future sessions.

We were introduced to their ideology, which goes something like this :

1) Preaching to the "awam" never works. An elite vanguard is needed to capture power.
2) Educated people are to be trained and placed in critical positions in society so that when things go bad, they can take over.
3) The primary objective of the movement was establishment of Khilafa and unification of the Ummah.

All of their people are educated and most settled in the UK.

These guys were paranoid about security and from the start of the hardcore sessions demanded cellphones be switched off and the batteries taken out. It seems the intelligence agencies were on their ass as they were always complaining of their members being picked up.

My main problem with them was that the establishment of "Khilafah" was an end to them and not the means to establish a better society. It was almost as if as soon as the Emir of HT took control there would be rainbows and unicorns in sky. They had a utopian view of the Ottoman empire and refused to acknowledge any flaws. They believed in the existence of one single monolithic Ummah across the world, which is an extremely flawed idea. And finally, the idea that their way was the one true path and everyone else was misguided. Their absurd demands for establishing Shariah in the UK, and blind adherence to the chant that Islam was the only way, etc etc .....

I attended a couple more sessions on and off, I was just curious, plus who doesn't like free KFC :P

[Kursed]

And never reported 'em to the authorities? Is that teacher still teaching at your university?

[towelie]

This was 6 years ago. At that time I just thought they were a bunch of idiots. I didn't know how dangerous and widespread they were until after I'd left them.

[AmplifiedtoRock]

The admin of one of the mosques in my area is an HT person. I also attended a couple of meetings with them. Not at Kfc though it was Student biryani for the for first and Fri Chicks for the second. I had a huge argument with them about their wall chalking ( I did not like destroying others property , painting others walls with your slogans) and also about them not going public. I always said to them, if you think you are on the right path, why hide. Well after that I went back to doha, and now when I am in Lahore, try to avoid them and go to another mosque.

Btw, They are still active in my area and bring people in their clan or whatever this is. Should I report to the authorities, if I should, what would be the appropriate way.

P.S Now i know, why they were curious about my Engineering and what my father does.

[Kursed]

If they try to get you back under their fold, feel free to report the matter to police. They're a banned organization under Pakistani laws.

[AhmedKhan]

Originally Posted by towelie

...until after I'd left them.

Have you???

Originally Posted by AmplifiedtoRock

... and Chicks for the second...

WHAT??!!! I WANT IN TOO!!!

But seriously, like Kursed said, report them to Police. Better yet, there is a new program that's announced. It's called Volunteer Student Task Force (VSTF). There is a week long training and you get Rs500,000 award for information leading to an arrest and you get job oppourtunities with Police, FIA and you are given preference for any other government job. Slogan is "Terrorism Free Pakistan". I kinda like it. So anyway, next time around, you join them and you infilterate their ranks and you become a spy for Pakistani Intelligence forces and you bring the fuckers down ...seriously!

[nofel]

i met hizb ppl earlier this year in kfc pindi .
but wasnt really interested in em coz they want khilafa and the method to get their is shabby.
i even in my fsc gave their pamphlet to ppl on friday prayers and was active in weekend night sessions.
they have quite a few things which hurt ppl whom u would call fundamentalist especially in dept of hadith science though they wont look like a religious outfit more of political one.

[stickman!]

ahhhh, so KFC it is !



the HuT HQ

-peace
stickman!

[acid911 ®]

Yo Stickman! The image you hotlinked doesn't work. Maybe you can upload it to Tinypic or some other image host.