No decision to ban Indian Mujahideen by government so far

NEW DELHI: Government has not taken a decision on banning the Indian Mujahideen, a terror group that has claimed responsibility for various blasts in the country beginning from serial explosions outside courts in Uttar Pradesh in November 2007.

The Indian Mujahideen, which the intelligence agencies believe is a shadow outfit of Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba with cadres drawn from SIMI, has been emailing claims of responsibilities ahead or minutes after every serial blast in the country.

The Indian Mujahideen's name first came to fore after serial blasts outside court premises at Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad which left 15 dead and scores injured.

The email sent five minutes ahead of these blasts to various television channels also dropped enough hints that the group could be behind the Mumbai serial train blasts of 2006 in which nearly 187 people were killed.

This was followed by the serial blasts in Jaipur in May this year, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi for which the Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility. More than 70 people were killed in these attacks.

Experts feel that Indian Mujahideen was a fit case for banning. "This group is hundred per cent fit case to be banned under the unlawful activities (Prevention) Act," says former Director of Intelligence Bureau Ajit Doval.

According to the provisions of a 1967 law "unlawful activity" is defined as any action taken by individual or associations (whether by act, words or signs) which is intended to question or disrupts the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India or cause disaffection can be banned.Efforts to obtain comments from the Home Ministry did not fructify.