3RD LEAD (Update)

SL military, police go all out against everything ‘Thowheed’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 May 2019, 23:54 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and the SL police have detained at least 21 Muslims in Mannar up to Wednesday night. Most of the arrested are members of various Thowheed Jamath groups that are different from the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), which was created by the Easter Sunday attacker Zahran Hashim. These are multiple organisations such as Ceylon TJ, SLTJ, All Ceylon TJ and United TJ which are not prohibited. Even the hardliners in these groups have faith-oriented difference with the NTJ. However, the SL Police and the military are going after everything that has 'Thowheed' in the name, legal sources in Mannaar said. The personnel carrying out the cordon and search operations are Sinhalese. Meanwhile, the SL soldiers are also desecrating the places of worship by wearing shoes inside the premises, the people complained.

Twelve of the persons detained on Wednesday are from Puthuk-kudiyiruppu which is located near Thalai-mannaar. Nine persons are from Moor Street in the city of Mannaar. The arrested persons include a Moulavi, a school principal and teachers, the sources said.

The SL police are demanding detailed information regarding the source of funds from the organisers of the various Thowheed faith groups.

The detainees under the notorious Emergency Regulations are being immediately transferred to Vavuniyaa for further interrogations by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) there, informed sources said.

In the meantime, a Japan-made pistol was found abandoned along the road at Adampan on Thursday.

So far, the SL Police has detained at least 130 Muslims under the ER/PTA since the Easter Sunday bombings in the island.

In the meantime, the criminal gangs associated with the politicians and the Muslim operatives of the paramilitary groups of the Sinhala military are also afraid of facing ER/PTA ‘terrorism’ charges, and they want to get rid of their weapons and the cash bundles, reporters in the East said.

Bundles of cash notes have been located dumped along with weapons. Hundreds of swords have also been seized from various residences and public places in the residential areas elsewhere in the island.

On Monday, the SL TID detained Mohammed Sanoos, the coordinator of All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) for Manthai West in Mannaar.

The SL Police claimed that it had discovered explosive-detonators and a sum of unaccounted cash notes with the ACMC politician. The ACMC politician had failed to convince the SL TID on the source of the money, the police claimed.

The ACMC is led by Rishad Bathiudeen (Rishard Badurdeen), the SL Minister of Industry of Commerce, a controversial personality with a track record of creating divisions among the Tamil speaking peoples in Mannaar and Vanni for his electoral political ends.

Mr Bathiudeen denied that Sanoos was a party coordinator on Tuesday. However, he admitted that Sanoos was a party member.

In the meantime, Moulavi Munajid Seelani from Cheddi-ku'lam in Vavuniyaa, who joined the SL Minister in mid-2018 after distancing from Kader Masthan (UPFA), has delivered a hate speech after the Easter Sunday attacks.

The mobile video of the speech has gone viral through emails as social media remained muted after the attacks.

In the video, Moulavi Munajid stated that the attack on the churches on Easter Sunday was wrong as those who perished in the churches had not harmed the Muslims.

However, Munajid Seelani warned the fellow Islamic priests against criticising or condemning Zahran Hashim, the ringleader of the Easter Sunday attacks.

The Moulavi stated that those who had failed to wage jihad (holy war) in the past [when the Tamils and the Sinhalese attacked the Muslims], had no right to condemn Zahran and that the Allah would show mercy (Rahmat) to Zahran.

The Vavuniyaa-based Moulavi was justifying a jihad against those who attack the Muslims on the island, not all the Kafirs. Only the Kafirs who attack Muslims or their businesses should face a targeted jihad from the Muslims on the island, he argued.

Munajid is an influential Islamic preacher, who has become radicalised over the years, particularly since 2015.

The moulavi from Vavuniyaa was aligned with Rishad Bathiutheen until 2015 when he switched his political allegiance to Kader Masthan in Vavuniyaa. However, after Masthan was appointed as a deputy minister and a joint coordinator of the Task Force last year, Munajid distanced from Masthan as the latter was increasingly criticising Bathiutheen. Again, the hardline Moulavi switched his allegiance towards Bathiutheen in July 2018.

Interestingly, Munajid Seelani was also blaming the ISIS as an outfit lacking guts.

"We regard the ISIS as Yehudis," he said in the video.

"The ISIS which is unable to confront the Yehudis [Israelis], who are killing the Muslim children, doesn't need to come here to fight for us. Any Muslim from the Middle-East, who is unable to protect the children and the women getting attacked by the Israelis in their deserts, doesn't need to come to demand justice for Muslims here. We will look after ourselves," he said in the 8-minute video which went viral among the Tamil-speaking Muslims.

The SL military and police launched a search against the Moulavi immediately after the video. However, they were not able to locate him. Unconfirmed reports claim that he had managed to leave the island, possibly with the backing of SL Minister Bathiutheen.

The radicalisation of the Moulavi from Vavuniyaa over the recent years could be witnessed through his sermons which are accessible online.

In one of his sermons found on YouTube, Munajid has narrated how the 'Yehudis' were recruiting the Muslims, who were visiting Saudi Arabia on religious pilgrims.

He alleged that the Israeli agents, posing as Muslims, were recruiting faith groups in the island intending to cause divisions among the Muslims. The visiting Muslims from the island lack language skills to be able to detect the camouflaged infiltration, he argued. Large sums of money were also involved in the Israeli infiltration, he claimed.

TamilNet refrains from publishing his Jihadi hate speech but provides below the sermon in which he alleges Israeli infiltration in the island.



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