Anti-terror police have launched an investigation after it emerged that the head of religious events at Glasgow Central Mosque, Sabir Ali, held senior positions in the UK branch of the group Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) – an organisation responsible for terrorist atrocities in Pakistan. In documents uncovered by the BBC, the organisation's own publication suggests that both Ali and Hafiz Abdul Hamid, a leader at Edinburgh's Polwarth Mosque, had connections with SSP after it was banned. SSP was proscribed by the UK government in 2001 and then by the government of Pakistan in 2002 for violence against the Shi’a community.