http://indianexpress.com/article/in...-from-one-failed-business-to-another-4550368/
BABLU Saifi, a scrap dealer in Kumbharwada area of Bhavnagar, remembers Naeem Ramodia clearly. The 27-year-old would often come to his scrapyard looking for work as a casual labourer, earning Rs 400 a day, including two days before his arrest. “He appeared to have fallen on bad times. A mobile phone seller told me Naeem had visited his shop thrice recently and enquired about the price of a mobile charger. But he didn’t have even Rs 50 to purchase the charger,” says Saifi. Early Sunday morning, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested Naeem and brother Vaseem Ramodia, 30, for alleged links with the Islamic State, the first such case in the state. ATS officials said the brothers were under their watch for two years and were active on social media, where they supported IS ideology. Vaseem’s wife Shehjeen was mentioned in the FIR for allegedly provoking her husband into violence.
Over those two years that the ATS says it watched the brothers, the two went from one failed business venture to another, reducing both to penury and forcing Naeem to work as a casual labourer. Relatives say Vaseem was not interested in studies and always wanted to do business. After he failed his Masters of Computer Application exam, father Arif Ramodia told both his sons to stop studying as he couldn’t afford to pay for their education anymore. Arif retired as a stenographer from Saurashtra University, Rajkot, in June 2015. He is also an umpire associated with the Saurashtra Cricket Association, Rajkot. Their mother Shirin belongs to Bhavnagar.
Relatives say Arif’s decision forced Naeem, then in his Bachelors of Computer Application course, to also drop out, despite wanting to pursue studies. Arif married off Vaseem to Shehjeen, a girl from Bhavnagar, in 2010. Their first child, a boy, died minutes after birth. They now have a four-year-old girl. Later, Naeem got married to Farheen, who belongs to Bhavnagar too, and they have a one-year-old son. Around three years ago, the two families shifted to Bhavnagar. They first tried their hand at readymade men’s clothes, opening a shop in Pirchhalla area. When that did not take off, they shifted to women garments and opened another shop, again in Pirchhalla.
Locals remember the brothers as being fond of video games and frequenting a gaming zone in Sanskar Mandal area. When the women’s clothes business also failed, around a year ago, Vaseem returned to Rajkot and started working as a graphic designer. In 2015, Naeem moved into Afrin Apartments, in the Muslim-dominated area of Prabhudas Talav, into a two-bedroom flat that had been gifted by his maternal grandfather. According to relatives, Naeem’s financial situation kept getting worse, with his attempt at dealing in scrap generated at the ship-recycling yard in Alang on the Bhavnagar coast also failing. Bablu Saifi says Naeem first came looking for work at his scrapyard around six months ago. Surprised at the ATS charge of him and brother Vaseem having terror links, including planning attack on a famous temple in Surendranagar, Saifi says his impression of Naeem was of a defeated man. “He was a software engineer by training but didn’t even give an impression of that. In fact, he looked too old for his age. He would be happy cleaning and washing scrap and smoking bidis.”
A relative says everyone in the family knew of Naeem’s dire straits. “He struggled for petty amounts like Rs 200 or Rs 300. His wife Farheen had learnt to run the house on the slimmest of budgets.” At Afrin Apartments, neighbours are equally surprised at the terror charge, though they add they had little interaction with the couple. “Naeem didn’t attend society meetings and hardly mingled with others,” says a neighbour. The president of the housing society, who doesn’t want to be named, says he had only exchanged greetings with Naeem whenever their paths crossed in the parking area. “Naeem would just hand over the monthly Rs 1,000 maintenance to our security guard. He seemed to be a recluse.”
Sources said Farheen was at her parents’ home with their son when Naeem was arrested just after midnight on Sunday. Three hours later, Vaseem was arrested from his residence in Nehru Nagar area of Rajkot. The ATS claims to have recovered literature on making bombs from their laptops, as well as crude bombs, gun powder and jihadi literature. Expressing shock at the charges against the brothers, a relative says, “We don’t believe they could be planning a terror attack. At the same time, police must have had some reason to arrest them. We shall fight the case in court.” Vaseem’s father-in-law Aziz Lada, who lives in Bhavnagar, says Vaseem and wife Shehjeen, who studied till Class XII, are being framed. “Shehjeen is a simple woman. The media has been doing all kinds of stories on her. She is extremely pained by all this. Her pain is my pain.”
Talking about the financial difficulties the Ramodias were facing, Lada adds, “A young man in such crisis can be lured by the offer of a small amount of money. But that doesn’t make him a serious offender like a terrorist… In our country, every Muslim is being looked at with suspicion since 2002, though loving one’s motherland is the imaan (faith) of a Muslim. It is possible my son-in-law might have committed some mistake and that could be the reason he has been arrested. But his mistake is being magnified a thousand times. This case is communally motivated. They are spreading poison.” On Sunday morning, hours after Naeem’s arrest, a mob rushed inside the Afrin Apartments and threatened that “if somebody is planning to plant bombs, we will do our bit too”. Police have since deployed two police control room vans outside the building.
