NIA Raids Mufti Khalid’s Home, Protesters Free Him, Re-arrested

Jhansi(The Uttam Hindu): Anti-NIA protest erupts in Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, December 12, when the National Investigation Agency went on a nationwide raid with a focus on the people helping the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed into radicalizing Muslim youth through social media and spreading propaganda and hatred.

The NIA carried out searches across 19 locations in five states, namely Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Gujarat. The operation aims to dismantle terrorist networks, prevent the spread of radical ideologies, and curtail the flow of material that promotes violence and extremism.

Mufti Khalid, who was arrested in the raid, was now the center of attention in the protests that erupted afterward. His supporters, women among them, began assembling outside his house demanding that he be released. The size of the crowd swelled and, for a moment, managed to get Khalid out of police custody before he was rearrested. Tensions in the locality went up with the clash between protesters and the police.

The NIA's operation falls within the broad Indian government's efforts to contain terrorism and extremism, which, with Jaish-e-Mohammed's rising threat, calls for greater action on that front. The case further raises concerns over security agencies' struggle to balance counterterrorism operations against public sentiments. As the NIA continues to dismantle extremist networks, such incidents remind us of the complexity of policing in a diverse society where religious and political sensitivities often intersect with national security concerns. This latest raid and the protests that followed in Jhansi are reminders of the struggle to deal with extremism in India and the contentious relationship between security measures and civil rights.