Kochi: Arshi Qureshi and his aide Rizwan Khan who were arrested by a joint team of Kerala police and the Maharashtra’s Anti Terror Squad from Mumbai recently, were brought to Kochi on Sunday in order to collect evidence in the case of forceful religious conversion. The duo who are suspected to have IS links, were flown in to the Nedumbassery airport in a special chartered aircraft under tight security by 12.30 noon and taken to the Kalamassery AR camp.
Though they were expected to be taken to an Islamic study centre in Vytilla, the cops questioned them at the camp, sources said. “The probe revealed that Qureshi had converted many people. Some of the people missing from Kerala attended a religious class taken by Qureshi in Mumbai,” they said.
However, during interrogation, his aide Rizwan Khan denied the charges and said he was running a marriage bureau. While Arshid was arrested earlier this week from Navi Mumbai, Rizwan Khan was held from Kalyan on Saturday. “He will be taken to the study centre in Vytilla on Monday and thereafter be produced before the Ernakulam District Sessions court as his transit warrant period ends tomorrow,” they said.
The Kochi city police had registered a case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against Qureshi along with Palakkad-native Yahiya alias Bestin Vincent. This was after Ebin Jacob, 25, brother of Merin who went missing along with her husband Yahia, gave a statement before the police that the duo forced him to get converted to Islam and join the terrorist organisation. The police also raided an Islamic study centre based in Vytilla and found Qureshi had sent e-mails from the computers there.
