Brother Defends Arrested Imam, Calls Accusations Against Ishityaq Baseless
The brother of arrested Imam Mohammad Ishityaq, Mohammad Shahbad, claimed his brother’s innocence in the white-collar terror case links on Wednesday, stating that the accusations against him are entirely wrong.
In an interview with ANI, Shahbad said, “He has been the imam of that masjid of Al Falah University for the last 20 years. I had deployed him there before his marriage. He and his family live there. We keep visiting each other frequently. He had bought a land in Fatehpur and had built rooms for rent. One of those rooms was rented by this doctor (Muzammil). We don’t know when he rented that room.”
Defending his brother further, Shahbad added, “No one keeps an eye on the day-to-day activities of the tenant. We visit our tenants only to collect rent. The media now reports that weapons and explosives have been recovered from the room of that tenant. The accusations against my brother are absolutely wrong. My family has never had any accusations. All my brothers are imams.”
The National Investigation Agency is likely to visit Al-Falah Medical College in Faridabad’s Dhouj as part of its extensive probe into the Delhi car blast case, which has involvement of a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) module.
Al-Falah Medical College is the place from where additional weapons, pistols, and explosives were recovered on November 8.
The medical college has become a key focus area in the probe after security agencies recovered the explosives from its premises during coordinated search operations.
Investigations have established that a doctor named Muzammil, employed at Al-Falah Medical College, was arrested for his alleged involvement with the module. Another member, Dr Umar, also worked at the same institution. He managed to evade arrest when agencies intensified their crackdown on the network.
The fugitive Umar, cornered by the agencies’ sustained action, likely acted in panic and desperation, which eventually led to the blast near the Red Fort. He was killed in the incident. The CCTV footage indicates that Dr Umar of this module was driving the vehicle involved in the explosion.
Meanwhile, the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday expressed its profound grief over the loss of lives in the terrorist incident involving a car explosion near the Red Fort in Delhi on Monday evening.
The Cabinet observed two minutes’ silence in honour of the innocent lives lost. (ANI)
