Chronicle News Service
Indore, Mar 27:
In a major crackdown against the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the Special Task Force (STF) on Thursday arrested at least 13 of its top leaders including the national general secretary, Safdar Nagori and his brother and chief of the operations in Andhra Pradesh, Kamruddin. The activists were arrested early on Thursday morning from a house in Shyam Nagar locality of the city. All the accused will be summoned before in the court here on Friday.
Before his arrest, Nagori had been named in a First Information Report (FIR) for Unlawful Activities, registered at the New Friends Colony Police station in South Delhi and was declared a proclaimed offender in the case and had been absconding since September 27, 2001.
Nagori is alleged to have established links with the operatives of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's external intelligence agency, and other Islamic fundamentalist leaders in a bid to revive SIMI cadres under the umbrella of a different outfit. Besides, Nagori and Kamruddin, the jawans of the Special Task Force also arrested the outfit's top leaders in Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively.
Describing the operation as a "big achievement for the police," Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said "weapons and computers have been found... Investigations are on into SIMI's plans to expand its network in the state...This is a major achievement and SIMI's network will be eradicated, he added.
Police sources said during the operation, weapons, money and objectionable literature have been seized from the activists who were nabbed from different parts of Indore and neighbouring Dhar district. Intelligence Agencies
had been keeping tabs on activities of the banned organisation in Indore for the last few months, the sources said, adding top SIMI leaders were noticed visiting a flat in Indore on several occasions. Some of the activists were arrested from Pithampur in Dhar district, a few km away from Army's Hema Range, they said.
The sources said heads of different wings of SIMI involved in publicity, weapons procurement and financing were also taken into custody. SIMI, they said, had increased its activities in Madhya Pradesh during recent years.
Madhya Pradesh SIMI leader Safdar Nagori, son of retired assistant sub-inspector of police, had been absconding since the ban was imposed on the outfit on September 27, 2001. He is facing cases of spreading religious discord and certain other serious charges since 1997-98. Police sources said as many as 33 cases were registered against SIMI activists in various districts in the state before the group was proscribed.
The outfit is alleged to be involved in all major terrorist attacks in the country (outside J&K) in terms of providing logistics and foot soldiers to major Pakistan-based jehadi groups.
Indore range IG, Anil Kumar talking to this newspaper informed that on the basis of preliminary interrogations held with the accused, Indore police contacted police in various states and accordingly police teams from Haryana, Kerala, Karnatakka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have left for Indore to interrogate SIMI activists in connection with series of bomb blasts and terrorists attack reported from various parts of the country in the past one-and-a-half years including Hyderabad, Ajmer, Malegaon and Samjhauta Express respectively.
The crackdown against SIMI comes just a week after Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal told the Lok Sabha that the banned outfit and its associates were planning serial blasts in the country and the Centre has extended its ban imposed on SIMI for another two years.
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