Author: Rajeev P I
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: July 14, 2006
In Kerala, much of the original cadre of the
proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) have survived the ban
using the cover of a slew of Islamic outfits and still continue with their
cause, state intelligence sources told The Indian Express.
Last month, the state government had filed
its affidavit before the tribunal headed by Delhi High Court judge B N Chaturvedi
evaluating the third phase of the two-year ban, as required by the Unlawful
Activities (Prevention) Act, 1959 invoked to ban it.
It had categorically claimed that SIMI men
were still actively propagandising their extremist causes, outlined its foreign
funding channels (mainly the West Asia) and how it had "lately"
developed connections with the Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Ale Kerala Government was categoric that this
outfit must stay banned, unlike Mulayam Singh's Government in UP, which had
told the tribunal that it did not find enough reasons to ban it.
SIMI was first banned on 27 September 2001,
and the two-year ban terms are being extended regularly, with the mandatory
endorsement from the tribunal each term.
Intelligence sources say even while it stayed
banned, SIMI had organised a meeting of its top 25 leaders at Kozhikode last
year, and a radical cleric from Lakshwadeep took classes for it in Malappuram.
It has also been organising regular indoctrination
drives, particularly targeting college-level youth, under cover of several
front outfits.
Some of the outfits now under police scanner
for SIMI presence include the ultra-radical National Development Front (NDF),
the People's Democratic Party (PDP) of Coimbatore serial blasts accused Abdul
Nasser Mahdani, and several fringe outfits, including the Muslim Youth Cultural
Forum, Karuna Foundation, Muslim Aikya Vedi, Sahridaya Vedi, Samskara Vedi,
Solidarity Students Movement and the Movement for Protection of Islamic Symbols
and Monuments, among others. Many of these, the police say, are funded abundantly
from West Asian countries.
"Yes, they went into other organisations
after the ban came. We can't do anything about it," the state DGP Raman
Shrivastava told The Indian Express.
He, however, insisted that there was still
nothing to connect the SIMI ranks in Kerala with the Mumbai blasts.
"We have no intelligence on any such
linkage yet," he said.
