16 August 2009
AFP - Police raided an Islamic sect's compound in central Nigeria, evacuating some 4,000 members, weeks after an uprising by another sect left 800 dead in five northern states, officials said Sunday.

"Our action of evacuating members of the sect from Darul Islam is necessary to forestall any religious crisis in the (central) state" of Niger, state police commissioer Mike Zuokumor told AFP.

He said around 1,500 police from Abuja carried out the operation on the sect in a large compound in Mokwa, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Minna, the Niger state capital, on Saturday.

He said the action followed complaints by the state government that the existence and activities of the group could cause a religious crisis, and fears of possible deadly violence like the uprising last month by the self-styled Taliban fundamentalist group Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

"They are being kept in a government technical college so as to question them about their activities," Zuokumor said.

He added that members of the sect did not resist the authorities and no weapons were found on them. "Our operation was peaceful," he said.

He said the suspects could face prosecution if their activities were found to be detrimental to religious peace in the state.

But Darul Islam's leader Malam Bashiru Abdullahi Sulaiman said in a telephone interview with AFP that the sect was founded 16 years ago to "enable us to practice our faith as purely as possible and not to mingle with ordinary people."

The state government had invited the police to take action after it became worried about the activities of the group, spokesman Bala Abdukadir told AFP.

"We don't want a repeat of the Boko Haram episode in Niger state," he said.

The Boko Haram violence which erupted on July 26 was crushed after days of clashes between the sect and security forces.

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has ordered an investigation into the violence and the killing in police custody of the sect's leader Mohammed Yusuf.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay and rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on the government to investigate the security forces' role in the violence.

Nigeria's 140 million population is divided between Christians in the south, and Muslims mainly in the north, where 12 of the 36 states adopted Islamic sharia law in 2000.
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