In the wake of clashes in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly last Friday during a protest in support of “I love Muhammad” campaign, local cleric Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, the Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) president, was arrested among other accused, and sent to 14-day judicial custody.
The Bareilly police have accused Tauqeer Raza, 65, of allegedly “masterminding” the violence.
A prominent face of the Barelvi Sunni community, Tauqeer wields considerable influence in the religious and social spheres in the Bareilly region.
He is a descendant of Ahmed Raza Khan – the founder of the Barelvi sect, who is popularly known as Aala Hazrat. He is the younger brother of Maulana Subhan Raza Khan, the “gaddi nasheen” (custodian) of the Bareilly dargah which is the shrine of Ahmed Raza Khan.
Political stint
Tauqeer, whose father Rehan Khan had earlier served as an MLC from the Congress party, has been politically active for more than two decades.
In 2001, he launched his own political outfit IMC.While the IMC has struggled to gain traction beyond Bareilly, it has maintained significant influence in the city, indicating its supremo’s strong support base here.
While Tauqeer has never joined any mainstream political party, he has backed several regional and national parties over the years, according to IMC national general secretary and spokesperson Nafees Khan.
The IMC made its electoral debut in the 2001 Bareilly Municipal Corporation elections, when it won several seats. However, the party could not expand its footprint since.
In subsequent years, Tauqeer has extended his party’s support to various parties in UP. He backed the Congress in the 2007 state Assembly elections, but later aligned with the Samajwadi Party (SP). At one point he also supported the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). “This underscores Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan’s continuing influence and strategic role in UP politics,” said Nafees Khan.
The IMC contested the 2012 Assembly elections, fielding its candidates in 12 seats. The outfit even managed to win one seat, in the Bhojipura constituency, where its candidate Shazil Islam defeated the SP’s Virendra Singh Gangwar.
Raza was later appointed by the then Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government as the vice-president of the Uttar Pradesh Handloom Corporation, a position carrying the status of a minister of state. However, in September 2014, he resigned from this post, accusing the Akhilesh government of failing to prevent the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.
Controversies
Tauqeer has been involved in several controversies over the years. He has now been booked by the Bareilly police in seven out of 10 cases in connection with the Friday violence for his making an alleged bid to instigate the Muslim community through his speeches, among other charges.
This is the second time that he has been arrested and sent to jail.
In 2010, during the tenure of the Mayawati-led BSP government, the Bareilly police had arrested him for allegedly provoking mobs to indulge in violence during an Eid Milad-un-Nabi procession, which left several people injured and caused damage to vehicles and shops. To ease communal tension in Bareilly then – parts of which had remained under curfew for several days – the police later filed a report in court closing the investigation against him and granting him a clean chit.
In March 2023, the Moradabad police filed an FIR against him for allegedly promoting enmity between communities over his remarks on “Hindu Rashtra” at a city gathering. He had called for a case of treason to be registered against those advocating for a Hindu Rashtra.
In the same year, the Bareilly police placed Tauqeer under house arrest after he announced his plans for a “Tiranga Yatra” to protest the lynching of two Muslim youths in Haryana allegedly by cow vigilantes. He demanded enhanced security for mosques and madrasas, and called for a ban on Hindu outfits “trying to create divisions among communities”.
In June 2015, he sparked a debate by writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, demanding a complete ban on cow slaughter.
Earlier, in 2007, he triggered a controversy when he allegedly announced a reward of Rs five lakh on the head of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen if Delhi did not bar her entry into the country.
In 2022, Tauqeer was in the news when his relative and women rights activist Nida Khan joined the BJP.