Despite India having a predominately Hindu population, hostility against the community has grown over time. The Islamists have attacked innumerable Hindus, their processions amid several Hindu festivals like Ram Navmi and Hanuman Jayanti. The encouragement these fanatics receive from Sharia courts, which have only empowered zealots and fostered religiosity, is one of the main causes of the growth in religious intolerance. The main objective of these Sharia courts is to create a parallel government, which will propagate Islamic law above the constitution.
One such regressive ‘Taliban-model’ Islamic court functioning in India, especially in the southern part of the country is the Darul Khada or Dar-ul-Khada, which means God’s abode or God’s court. According to reports, Darul Khada is an outfit comprising Muslim ‘scholars and advocates’, which was set up in 2009 by SDPI national chief and founder E Abubacker.
Many reports have suggested the link between Darul Khada and the radical Islamic organisation PFI, which has been strongly communalizing the social space in Kerala. Darul Khada is, in fact, one of the PFI units that, on the exterior, claims to be involved in the organization’s ‘social’ activities but has frequently been linked to planning the assassinations of Hindu leaders in the South.
Intelligence sources have maintained that PFI actively promotes jihad through campaigns and lectures. The radical Islamic outfit encourages its cadres to kill Hindu activists in return for the rewards in the afterlife.
In fact, in the most recent case of the brutal killing of Praveen Kumar Nettaru, who was hacked to death, with sharp weapons, on July 26 by unidentified assailants in Bellari, Dakshina Kannada of Karnatakathe, the role of Islamist terrorist organisations PFI and SDPI also came to the fore.
Hours after the arrest of two accused named Mohammed Shafiq Ballere and Zaqir Savanuru, in connection with the murder of BJP Yuva Morcha member Praveen Kumar Nettaru in Karnataka, reports emerged that Shafiq and Zakir are linked to the Islamist terrorist organisation PFI and SDPI.
According to reports, the wife of Shafiq has confirmed that her husband was an active member of the PFI and that he used to participate in all the ‘social’ activities. ADGP (law and order) Dakshina Kannada, and Alok Kumar who also interacted with the media confirmed that Zakir who has a criminal case in Bellare has been suspected of having PFI links.
Praveen Kumar Nettaru is one such many Hindus, who have been murdered with the active participation of PFI and reports have it that its units like the Darul Khada or the Satya Sarini, which claims to be looking after the ‘social’ work of the radical Islamic outfit, are actively helping the radical organisation to spread jihad and strengthen the roots of radical Islam in India.
While the Sathya Sarani trust has been linked to ISIS and has been suspected of being involved in religious conversions, Darul Khada is suspected of mobilizing and brainwashing Muslim youths to attack Hindu leaders. Even though Darul Khada claims to be handling civil disputes for the Muslim community like divorce and inheritance, these courts reportedly dictate which Hindu leader should be attacked and how.
Notably, the attack on Professor TJ Joseph in Kerala in 2010 had brought these Islamic Courts’ function into sharp focus.
TJ Joseph, a professor from Kerala, was accused of blasphemy in 2010. He was attacked and his hands were brutally chopped off by radical Islamists of PFI. The then Minister of Home Affairs of Kerala, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, in a statement, acknowledged that the government is aware that there is a local Darul Khada set up by the Popular Front of India under the supervision of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.
In fact, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had prepared a dossier back in 2018 that stated the PFI’s unit, Darul Khada is trying to run a parallel administration in the country. The NIA dossier also stated that in July 2009, a Kerala-level declaration was passed by the Darul Khada in Malappuram in which it had called upon the Muslim community not to attend civil courts, but to get all issues sorted out by it.
The PFI’s policy of exclusively recruiting only committed Muslim youths “who assiduously follow Islamic tenets” and its subsequent training of recruits using emotional videos of the Babri Masjid demolition and communal rioting to foster a sense of “Muslim persecution” in them were deemed “radical” in the dossier.
“Thus the recruits are guided to a besieged state of mind and trained in martial arts in the guise of self-defence and defence of the community,” it noted. The NIA dossier stated that PFI cadres are encouraged to act as guardians of Islamic values, “thus effectively transforming them into moral police”.
Like it was established that the attack on TJ Joseph had links with PFI, in 2019 when the NIA was probing the murder of Ramalingam, the agency had filed a chargesheet against 18 persons. All 18 persons are allegedly associated with the Popular Front of India (PFI) and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). In fact, the key conspirator was identified as one Shali alias Muden Ahmed Shali, a 51-year-old resident of Thenkasi, Tamil Nadu. NIA submitted that Shali was head of the Dawah team.
Ramalingam was brutally attacked and murdered in February 2019 in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, for allegedly interfering in the religious propaganda activities carried out by some Muslims in his locality. According to reports, Ramalingam was allegedly opposing the ‘Dawah’ work of Popular Front of India (PFI) leaders in Tamil Nadu in 2019, who were converting Hindus into Islam.
Shali alias Muden Ahmed Shal had entered into an altercation with Ramalingam on the morning of 5th February 2019. The accused, subsequently participated in a conspiracy meeting, wherein it was decided to attack Ramalingam. Sadiq, the administrator of Dawah work of the PFI, along with other accused persons, conspired in Thirubhuvanam on February 5, 2019, against Ramalingam by chopping his hands.
In fact, after the gruesome murder of Bajrang Dal worker Harsha, the NIA, which was looking into many attacks on Hindu leaders in South India, discovered a specific pattern in their deaths and all pointed to the purported connection between these murders and the Darul Khada of the PFI, much like the link between PFI and the attack on professor TJ Joseph in Kerala or the brutal killing of Ramalingam.
Harsha was stabbed to death by a group of Muslim youths on the night of February 20, 2022, at Kamat petrol bunk in Karnataka’s Shivamogaa district. He was from Seegehatti and worked as a tailor. Harsha was associated with the Hindu organisation Bajrang Dal, and he was spotted wearing saffron shawls to protest in support of the school and college dress regulation.
Early investigations by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have revealed that the murder of Bajrang Dal activist Harsha in Karnataka was perpetrated to orchestrate communal unrest against the backdrop of the hijab issue.
