Sanaul Haq,head of the Indian branch of al-Qaida belongs to a family of freedom fighters in Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh.
Sanaul Haq’s family background came to light when intelligence agencies interrogated Mohammed Asif, the training and recruitment chief of Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).
Intelligence agency officials were shocked when they came to know that Sanaul Haq alias Maulana Asim Umar is from the family of freedom fighters.
However,Haq’s family in Deepa Sarai village in Sambhal are not shocked or surprised from the disclosure. “For us, he died six years ago when the local intelligence agents told us he had joined a terrorist organization.” Haq’s 70-year-old mother said.
Sanaul’s father Irfan-ul-Haq had already disowned him and gave advertisement in newspapers .
“Sanaul was always fond of books, but one day he announced he wanted to study the Quran and Arabic at a madarsa,” Haq senior recalled.
Sanaul went missing when he was 14 years old and his family presumed that he had died but in 2009 intelligence agents told that Sanaul was alive and working for terrorist organisations Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and al-Qaida.
Intelligence agencies arrested three suspects of the al Qaeda .Jafar Masood (UP), Abdul Rahman from Odisha Cuttack and Mohammad Asif, 41, from Delhi were arrested . The two men are part of a module of the terror group’s Indian sub-continent wing operating out of the country, police claimed.
The suspected Al Qaeda operative Abdur Rehman had received money in his bank account from London.
The Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Police Commissioner Rajendra Prasad Sharma said, Rehman had received a substantial amount from London this year and it is under examination.
