Ban on SIMI extended

NEW DELHI: The Centre has extended the ban on SIMI, first imposed in 2002, for another two years, citing fresh terror cases registered against its cadres; arrests of key members of SIMI, including de-facto chief Safdar Nagori from Madhya Pradesh in 2008; the role of Simi front and the Indian Mujahideen in the 2008 Delhi and Jaipur blasts; and the post-ban conviction of many jailed cadres of the outfit.

The ban on SIMI was to expire on February 7, 2010, in the normal course, but now stands extended until February 7, 2012.

The Centre, in its run-up to renewal of the terror ban on SIMI under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, had sought from the states inputs on the terror cases involving SIMI that are now at various stages of investigation/trial. The states — including Madhya Pradesh, which had arrested almost a dozen Simi cadres including top man Safdar Nagori in 2008, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi — are said to have listed cases against
SIMI and its cadres, including those relating to plotting terror attacks and the conviction of its cadres by the courts since the ban was last extended in 2008.

Their inputs — establishing that Simi continued to indulge in terror activities by reinventing itself and tying up with Pakistan's ISI and LeT to recruit local cadres and carry out terror acts here — were instrumental in Centre’s decision to continue the ban on terror outfit SIMI until 2010.

Incidentally, the extended ban on Simi comes even as several Muslim groups have come together to protest against branding of the outfit as a terror organisation. "It is for the first time that the community has shown the courage to come out in the open to protest against the ban on SIMI. Though this should have been done much earlier, we are happy that we could gather the courage at least now," Zafarul Islam Khan of Milli Council, one of the groups involved in the anti-ban campaign along with Jamiat Ulema and the Jamaat Islami-e-Hind, was quoted as saying.

No Muslim organisation except the Jamaat Islami-e-Hind has publicly sympathised with SIMI ever since it was first banned in 2001.

The ban, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, had come in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the US. The government said Simi was involved in anti-national and terrorist acts. The outfit was outlawed again in 2003 and 2006.