The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Monday, October 1, 2001, Chandigarh, India

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46 more SIMI activists held
Bihar orders crackdown

New Delhi, September 30
Forty-six more activists of outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) were arrested in continuing nationwide crackdown on the radical Muslim outift even as the Centre today said the question to ban Bajrang Dal did not arise.

Eleven activists were arrested in Ahmedabad and six in Solapur in Maharashtra, of whom one was remanded to judicial custody.

The police also raided a printing press in Ahmedabad, where SIMI activists got their pamphlets, posters and other material printed, and seized two computer central processing units.

Eight activists of SIMI were arrested in Bhuj yesterday. Nineteen SIMI activists have so far been arrested in Gujarat.

The Bihar Government has ordered a crackdown on SIMI activists in the state.

The belated decision followed a high-level meeting of the state officials with Chief Minister Rabri Devi yesterday.

The Bihar Home Secretary, Mr U.N. Panjiar, said today that district magistrates and police superintendents had been asked to take action against the SIMI activists.

Twentynine of the total 60 active members and office-bearers of SIMI have been arrested so far in Madhya Pradesh, the police said.

The police said eight activists were held from Indore, four each from Ujjain and Guna, three each from Seoni and Neemuch, two each from Burhanpur, Sheopurkalan and Jabalpur and one from the state capital of Bhopal.

The state chief of SIMI, hailing from Ujjain, has however, managed to evade arrest but efforts were on to book him, the police added.

The 10 SIMI activists who were arrested in Coimbatore and lodged in the Central Jail here were shifted to Salem prison, jail sources said today.

The activists were shifted on Saturday as the administration did not want them to mingle with the key accused in the1998 serial blasts.

However, the jail authorities said they were shifted due to overcrowding.

Union Minister of State for Home C.H. Vidyasagar Rao today ruled out the possibility of banning the Bajrang Dal in the wake of the ban on SIMI.

“The question of imposing a ban on the Bajrang Dal doesn’t arise. We have to differentiate between an airgun and an AK-47,” Mr Rao told reporters at Kolkata.

Pointing out that SIMI was banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, he said there was “clinching evidence” that the organisation was engaged in unlawful activities and had relations with Pakistan’s ISI. UNI, PTI

Kanpur: a hub of activities
Satish Misra
Tribune News Service

Kanpur, September 30
Once dubbed as Manchester of India, this prime industrial city of yesteryear has grown into one of the crucial operational areas of the now-banned SIMI.

Kanpur, a city of about 19 lakh people with 15 per cent of them being Muslims, became a preferred destination of all those who abandoned Mumbai fearing police reprisal after a series of bomb blasts in the wake of the demolition of Babri Mosque.

The SIMI leadership was involved in public activities, making speeches, holding press conferences, issuing statements and propagating its ideology and objectives.

On the other hand, the SIMI began to use its trained cadres known as “Ansars” (full-time helpers), which ceased to be active with the organisation because they had crossed age barrier, for underground work, intelligence officials pointed out.

With around three lakh Muslims living in pockets of Chamanganj, Beconganj, Anwarganj,Nai Sarak, Bazaria Dadamian ka Chauraha and Moolganj, Kanpur’s topography offered an excellent opportunity for the growth of SIMI, a former IIT Social Science Professor K.N. Sharma said.

These exclusive Muslim areas are even out of bound for civic and police officials, Professor Sharma said, adding that the inhabitants of these areas do not pay municipal taxes, nor even bother to shell money for civic amenities like water and electricity.

Even though the growth of the BJP has been phenomenal in the city with as much as six Assembly seats out of the total seven of the parliamentary constituency going to it, but neither the city administration nor any of the recent state governments have had the political courage to intervene. In 1992-93, then SP (City) Kamal Saxena, was manhandled and had to abandon the search operations. Not even a beat constable has visited these Muslim strongholds for years now, former MLA S.N. Shukla said, adding that all kind of criminal activities breed here.

In some areas, even police personnel manning police posts abandon these posts in the night, a local journalist Ram Yadav said.

Kanpur, once a stronghold of left parties, became a fertile ground for communal politics and the SIMI organised its Ikhwan (brothers) conference here last year. During the conference, statements like “the Quran is our Constitution. If the Indian Constitution clashes with the Quran, we are not by the Constitution were made from the platform.

Cassettes euologising Osama bin Laden and Maualana Azhar Masood of Jaish-e-Mohammad were circulated. These developments led to buidling up of social and communal tensions, Professor Sharma said.

During riots allegedly engineered by SIMI in March this year, 11 persons, including a ADM (Civil Supplies) were killed. During subsequent search operations, even parts of rocket- launchers were found, a police official said.

A Pakistani spy was apprehended from Kanpur sometime back who had been able to establish a fake identity in this city over a period of time, intelligence sources said.