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Police teams from Mumbai and Thane have fanned out across the state to search for Saqib Nachen, an alleged activist of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which is suspected of having organised the recent spate of bomb blasts in the city.
Saqib returned to Mumbai after serving a ten-year term in Sabarmatijail in Gujarat for conspiring with Pakistan-sponsored activists to conduct terror strikes in India, officials claimed.
Crime branch sleuths from Mumbai have already questioned Adil Illias Khot (35), SIMI's Maharashtra president, who was arrested by the Thane rural police on March 14, a day after the Mulund train blast.
The police are keen to nab Saqib, who had previously been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Ahmedabad in 1992. The arrest was accompanied by the recovery of huge quantities of assault rifles, rocket launchers and bombs smuggled in from Pakistan.
In Mumbai, Saqib lived in Borivli
and operated from Padhe village, 75 km from the city, where SIMI had a
full-fledged networking centre until the organisation was banned in September
2001. The Thane rural police had arrested Saqib a year ago for allegedly
handing out jehadi literature and widening the communal divide. However,
he was released on bail and is now on the wanted list.
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