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Author:
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 15, 2006
The police are keeping a strong vigil on suspected Students' Islamic Movement of India moles now operational in border districts of North and South 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Malda and North Dinajpur in West Bengal.
State Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray said the ban on SIMI was being strictly implemented adding efforts are on to nab those who could be involved in the Mumbai blasts. "SIMI's hand in the blasts cannot be ruled out," he said.
Intelligence officials said a closed ring of SIMI activists had been sneaking in and out of India in the garb of traders and students for the past 1 year. "Many of them have changed their names and settled in non-minority areas of Kolkata and other towns like Burdwan and Behrampore," officials said adding a number of SIMI-backed outfits had in fact contested elections in the border districts.
Election Commission officials on Friday refused comments on whether certain SIMI candidates had fought 2004 general elections on INL ticket. "The name of the outfit on whose ticket a candidate contested can be given but it will be difficult to determine the antecedents of those backing him," an EC official said.
Uncorroborated reports say, SIMI had fielded its candidates from a host of constituencies in the minority-dominated areas of Murshidabad, Jangipur, Diamond Harbour, Basirhat and even Kolkata Northeast.
Police sources also revealed how the SIMI-sponsored conventions attended by scores of delegates were held in Madaras of Malda and North 24 Parganas stressed on the need of transporting men from India to Bangladesh and back.
About 200 people attended the Malda convention, sources said adding the delegates expressed their views towards creating fighters who could be trained in Bangladesh. Subsequently people were taken to Chittagong in that country for training, that the organisers call "deeper aspects of Islamic theology."
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