Author: Paul John
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 23, 2008
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Cops_had_SIMI_email_intercepts_in_2001/articleshow/3395017.cms
The Surat SIMI conference, it is believed,
was organized by an assistant professor in Jodhpur University, Abdulhai Abdulsattar
Silavat, with two others whose names are still not known. The prime objective
of this meet was the recruitment of Muslim youth after the ban was imposed
in September 2001.
During the course of the investigation, the
police intercepted emails by a SIMI activist from Ahmedabad, Suhel Patel.
Suhel was a US-born Indian from Paguthan village in Bharuch district of south
Gujarat, living in Ahmedabad for nearly 15 years.
The email messages revealed vital information
on the financial support being provided by two US-based organizations: the
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Chicago-based Consultative
Committee of Indian Muslims (CCIM).
One of the messages dated December 11, 2001
contained a Rs 1.24-crore proposal forwarded by Suhel to one mehman (guest)
for sustaining the SIMI movement following its ban in September that year.
The break-up of the fund was thus - Rs 48 lakh for the families of the arrested
SIMI leaders and Rs 25 lakh as legal aid for fighting their court cases.
Suhel had asked for Rs 12 lakh for offering
scholarships for thoseworking for the "cause" and another Rs 7 lakh
to launch a magazine on "Muslim brotherhood and making Muslims aware
of the fast-changing situation in the Islamic world".
In his confession to then Surat joint commissioner
of police Ashish Bhatia, Suhel confessed to drawing up the proposal following
a directive from the then SIMI President Shahid Badr Falahi.
Suhel revealed that one of his brothers-in-law
Yasin Ghulamrasool Patel, who owned a printing press in Ahmedabad had travelled
to Chicago for collecting funds for SIMI. Suhel was one of the many recruited
by Badr to amass funds for SIMI.
Other e-mail messages in Suhel's account show
how money is being transferred from the US to India. Rafik, his Chicago-based
brother-in-law, has written to him about an ISNA conference in the US attended
by delegates from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Singapore and India on August 31,
2000.
Rafik's email to one Chicago-based Professor
Munnawar Hussein "of the Jamaat" explains the new operations for
SIMI which was to target universities, unions, women, farmers and local field
workers and create a political wing of SIMI. Rafik had also advised Patel
to delete every message as soon as it has been read.
