Ala Hazrat family decries 'police excesses' in Bareilly, demands a stop on arrests of Muslims

The influential Ala Hazrat family on Wednesday decried the police crackdown on ''Muslims'' here following the arrest of Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) national president Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, a member of the clan.

The family alleged that ''innocent Muslims'' were being targeted and subjected to collective punishment.

In a statement released by Tauqeer Raza's elder brother, Maulana Tauseef Raza Khan, accused the police of filing false cases and arresting people on fabricated charges of attack on security forces with firearms, petrol bombs, and acid bottles.

He warned the administration that if ''atrocities'' on Muslims do not stop, the family would be compelled to take ''concrete steps.'' The family alleged that the police raided mosques, harassed imams and worshippers, and even prevented people from offering namaz in some places.

''This is a blatant violation of the constitutional right of Muslims to freely practice their religion,'' Tauseef Raza said. The family also claimed that police brutality had created unease not only in Bareilly Sharif but among ''millions of Sunni Muslims across India and abroad.'' It demanded an immediate halt to the arrests of Muslims, withdrawal of ''false cases,'' an end to bulldozer actions against their homes and alleged police excesses. The family alleged that many detainees were paraded before the media in an injured state, they were denied food and water in custody, and that even women and children were not spared the police excess. It cited a video shot purportedly near Indira Market and widely circulated on the internet, to claim that some miscreants had pelted stones both at police and Muslims with the intention of disturbing peace, but no action was taken against them. The Ala Hazrat family maintained that had Tauqeer Raza been allowed to submit his memorandum peacefully, the situation would not have escalated, but his arrest triggered unrest.

Police are yet to respond to the allegations made in the statement.

Violent clashes were witnessed in Bareilly on September 26, when a crowd of over 2,000 people gathered outside a mosque in Kotwali area after Friday prayers, followed by stone-pelting.

The unrest was triggered by the cancellation of a proposed protest over the 'I Love Muhammad' poster row called by Khan.

Ala Hazrat and his descendants are a prominent Islamic scholarly family associated with the Barelvi movement. Family patriarch Imam Ahmad Raza Khan (1856–1921) was a distinguished Islamic scholar, jurist, and Sufi mystic, renowned for his contributions to Islamic jurisprudence and his leadership in the Barelvi movement.

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