Bengaluru: Despite requests from the State Intelligence Wing (SIW) to monitor the activities of city-based cleric Maulana Anzarshah Qasmi, it is believed that the Bengaluru City Police never acted.

Maulana Anzarshah Qasmi, the city-based cleric arrested by the Delhi police for his alleged links with al-Qaeda, went on a radicalisation spree and successfully radicalised a large number of youth for about five years.
As per sources, the SIW had prepared a list of three such clerics- one each from Kalaburagi, Bengaluru and Vijayapura in 2010 and repeatedly requested the Bengaluru police specifically to keep close tab on Qasmi.

“We wrote three letters to the then City Police Commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar requesting that the movements of Qasmi and his radical activities be monitored. We had even requested the police to register cases against Qasmi, detain him and interrogate if need be. Despite our letters and sharing of’information, the police never acted,” a former police officer who served in the Intelligence department is quoted in Deccan Herald.

The SIW had also gathered several data on hate speeches of Qasmi and were convinced that he had contacts with terror outfits outside India. But, the SIW failed to trace his handlers.

The first time Qasmi came under the police radar was soon after the 2007 attack on the Glasgow international airport, carried out by Kafeel Ahmed, a resident of Karisandra in Banashankari 2nd stage. It is said that a Wahabi, Qasmi is believed to have radicalised Kafeel during his frequent visits to his mosque at Banashankari.