SIMI’s rise as source of recruits for terror outfits keeps agencies on edge

NEW DELHI: Since its shift towards radical beliefs became more pronounced in the 1990s, the Students' Islamic Movement of India, banned in 2001, has become major concern for security agencies for supplying recruits to Indian Mujahideen and Pakistan-based terrorist organisations.

Over the years, SIMI leaders radicalised Muslim youths and formed networks to train, plot and execute terrorist attacks, often in close collaboration with Pakistan's covert agencies that have directed violence against India.

In 2001, there were 400 full-time workers, known as 'Ansars' and 20,000 regular members and the organisation had established a presence in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Assam, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Gujarat. At a convention in 2001, SIMI leaders, including Ashraf Jaffery, Yasin Falahi, Jameel Siddiqui, Safdar Nagori, hailed al-Qaida boss Osama bin Laden as a 'brother'. Nagori's faction was to become a major source of terror recruits.

The Indian government banned SIMI as a "terrorist organisation" after 9/11 but the real problem surfaced in 2006, when Nagori, who is in jail since 2008, shed all pretence of student mobilisation and took to terrorist activities. Nagori was close to Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal, and their cousin Yasin, who came from Karnataka.

The Bhatkals and another SIMI leader Abdus Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer, formed a full-fledged home-grown terrorist organisation, Indian Mujahideen, in 2005-06 with the support of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami(HuJI). IM unleashed a series of attacks in India's major cities motivated by a desire to avenge the 2002 Gujarat riots. The SIMI leaders were religiously motivated, seeking to 'liberate India' and "restore" an Islamic society — an ideological goal they shared with Lashkar.

According to Indian agencies, IM carried out close to 30 bomb blasts in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Patna, Varanasi and others killing over 200 people from 2006-07 till 2013. Most attacks had the logistical support from SIMI and Tauqeer attended meetings and prepared material to be sent to media apart from providing hideouts.

After arrest of Yasin Bhatkal in 2013, SIMI, led by Tauqeer, struck out on its own. SIMI members, led by one Hyder Ali alias "black beauty", targeted Narendra Modi when he was BJP's PM candidate at a rally in Patna in October 2013. SIMI members also planned attack at Bodhgaya temple in Bihar. Its members carried out low intensity blasts in Roorkee, Varanasi and a train in Chennai.