Srinagar: Hundreds of books published in New Delhi and linked to the proscribed Jamaat-e-Islami outfit were seized by Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) police from some stores in Srinagar, officials said on Friday (February 14).
“Based on credible intelligence regarding the clandestine sale and distribution of literature promoting the ideology of a banned organisation, police conducted a search in Srinagar, leading to the seizure of 668 books. Legal action has been initiated under Section 126 of the BNSS,” Srinagar district police said in a post on X.
Under Section 126 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, an executive magistrate can order a person “to show cause why he should not be ordered to execute a bond or bail bond for keeping the peace for such period, not exceeding one year, as the magistrate thinks fit”.
A book store owner in Lal Chowk, Srinagar’s largest marketplace, told The Wire that a group of police personnel showed up at the store at around 3:30 pm on Thursday.
“They asked about the types of books we had, saying there was a ban on some books. Later they seized some books of Maududi and Islahi,” the store owner said, wishing anonymity.
Abul A’la Maududi, an Islamic scholar and historian from Pakistan, founded the Jamaat-e-Islami, the J&K chapter of which was set up in 1952. Amin Ahsan Islahi was a Pakistani Muslim scholar and a founder member of the Jamaat.
Sources said that most of the books seized by the police in Srinagar have been published by MMI Publishers, a Delhi-based publisher of religious books that was founded in 1948.
Some of the books seized by the police comprise the essential literature of the Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu Kashmir, which was banned by the BJP-led Union government under the provisions of the anti-terror law on February 28, 2019.
The five-year ban was imposed a fortnight after the Pulwama terror attack in which at least four dozen troopers were killed on February 14, 2019, when a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a convoy of Central Reserve Paramilitary Force personnel in Lethipora.
Also read: J&K Court Grants Bail to Scholar Jailed for 3 Years Over ‘Seditious Article’
Last year, the Union government extended the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami J&K under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for another five years, saying the socio-politico-religious group “continues to be involved in fomenting terrorism and anti-India propaganda for fuelling secessionism in Jammu and Kashmir”.
Defending the Jamaat, the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s Iltija Mufti alleged that the seizure of books was an attack on the “freedom to read”.
The elephant in the room vis-a-vis these books raids is that all of the 600 books seized have been authored by Abul Aala Maududi a renowned Islamic scholar & more importantly the founder of Jamaat – -e – Islami. A religious organisation that has done commendable social work in…
Advertisement— Iltija Mufti (@IltijaMufti_) February 14, 2025
Senior National Conference (NC) leader and MP for Srinagar, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, also opposed the police raids, saying they amounted to “meddling in [the] religious affairs” of the people of J&K.
If that wasn’t enough, there are reports of police seizing literature by Maulana Maududi (RA). Will the state now dictate what Kashmiris read, learn, and believe? This is an unacceptable overreach. If such an order exists, it must be revoked immediately. (2/3)
— Office of Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi (@Office_ASRM) February 14, 2025
A group of former and serving Jamaat-e-Islami members contested the assembly election in J&K last year, ending its three-decade-old boycott of the electoral process. The decision was welcomed by nearly all the mainstream parties of J&K, except the ruling NC.
Ghulam Qadir Lone, a former general secretary of the Jamaat who had invoked the call for ending the poll boycott, also led an eight-member panel of the outfit last year that held talks with the Union government for ending the ban on the outfit.
According to reports, the talks were facilitated by a Kashmir-based politician and an ally of the BJP.
However, the talks were reportedly opposed by the Jamaat’s active members, including its serving president Hameed Fayaz, who have been incarcerated following the reading down of Article 370 when J&K was demoted into two Union territories.
Lone’s son Kalimullah Lone also contested the 2024 assembly election but was defeated by the Awami Ittehad Party’s Khursheed Ahmad Sheikh.
With the exception of Sayar Ahmed Reshi, who contested from the Kulgam constituency, all the Jamaat candidates lost their security deposit.
This is not the first time that the Jamaat, which drafted its own constitution and separated from its parent outfit in Pakistan in 1952, has faced the music in J&K.
The outfit was banned first by the Indira Gandhi-led Union government under the anti-terror law in the aftermath of the emergency in 1975, when J&K was ruled by NC founder Sheikh Abdullah.
Some historians have noted that Abdullah saw the group as a political threat.
The Jamaat was again banned when the armed insurgency broke out in Kashmir in the early 1990s, and its members were hounded by the Ikhwan, a civil militia that was set up by the government to counter militancy.
The ban was lifted in 2004 when PDP founder Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was ruling J&K in an alliance with the Congress party.
