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."
