Author: Pioneer News Service
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: October 7, 2008
The two activists of banned Students Islamic
Movement of India (SIMI), arrested on Monday night, admitted before the special
Crime Branch investigation team that they had involved in anti-national activities.
They made this confession during their interrogation between 8 am and 3 pm
on Tuesday at the Police Club here. A court at North Paravur remanded them
in custody for fourteen days.
The SIMI workers, Shameer of Guruvayur and
Abdul Hakkeem of Eriyad, both in Thrissur district, were detained by the special
Crime Branch team reinvestigating the case related to the meeting held by
a group of SIMI operatives at Panayikkulam near Aluva on August 15, 2006.
Shameer and Hakkeem admitted to the police that anti-national programmes had
indeed been discussed at the meeting on that day.
Hakkeem was arrested by the team headed by
Deputy Inspector General TK Vinod Kumar from a private hospital in Kochi while
Shameer was detained from his residence in Guruvayur. The duo had been in
the team of 18 SIMI workers held from Happy Auditorium, Panayikkulam, during
the secret meeting.
Though the entire 18 workers were rounded
up by the police, they had taken into custody only five of them, allowing
13 to go free. The five persons who were taken into custody were released
later due to the alleged intervention by influential people. The police decided
to re-investigate the matter after two of them fell into police net in Indoor
recently after the series of blasts in several parts of the country.
The police were yet to confirm whether they
had taken part in the SIMI training camp held at Thangalppara in Kolahalamedu,
Vagamon in Idukki district in December 2007 and January 2008, which had been
carried out in preparation for the recent terrorist acts in the country. It
was the Director General of Police, Gujarat who had informed about the training
camp at Vagamon, where a group of SIMI workers had got trained in jungle
warfare and field action.
From the interrogation of the duo on Tuesday,
the police came to the conclusion that Hakkeem was still an active operative
of the banned outfit while Shameer was a 'sleeper'. Shameer was not involved
in the operations of the organisation actively but had close connections with
the SIMI leaders, the police concluded.
Meanwhile, a group of experts from the police
and its intelligence wing held further investigations at Thangalppara and
the surroundings in Kolahalamedu, where the about 40 SIMI activists had held
a camp in preparation for terrorist acts. The examinations were on the basis
of information that explosives-making and tests had been held at the training
camp.
The detailed examination was with the assistance
of forensic experts and the bomb squad equipped with gadgets like mine sweepers,
metal detectors and electronic stethoscopes. Superintendent of Police TV Kamalasanan
of the Crime Branch, Kozhikode, Forensic Director James Philippose, DySPs
KR Kannan, D Asokan, Venugopal and others led the inspections.
The team also took statements of the local
people about the sightings of the activists who participated in the training
camp, but they had nothing to offer more than what they had already told investigating
officials.
