Sushilkumar Shinde seeks information from Madhya Pradesh government on terror threat to his life

NEW DELHI: Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has asked for information from the Madhya Pradesh government on reports of a threat to his life from alleged terror operatives, two of whom have been arrested from his home district of Solapur in Maharashtra.

“I am asking for a report on this...I have heard that they were targeting me for Afzal Guru and Mohammed Kasab' s executions,” Shinde told ET.

The Madhya Pradesh Anti Terrorism Squad on December 24 arrested five alleged activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, including one Abu Faizal who had escaped from a MP Jail on October 1.

Two of the five were arrested from near a place in Solapur where the minister had gone to attend a marriage function. “Some people were arrested from just two houses away from the place where I went for this function. I was advised not to go there but I still went,” Shinde said.

Since becoming the home minister in 2012, Shinde has an Z-plus security cover with intelligence agencies earlier warning of a threat to him due to the hangings of Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru and Kasab.

“I never had security earlier… it is now a compulsion,” Shinde said. The minister has been visiting Solapur frequently amid speculations that he would be contesting from this constituency again.

What has complicated the matter for Shinde in the present case is that several Muslim organizations have approached him complaining that the two Solapur residents arrested – Mohd Sadique Ahmed Mulje and Umar Abdul Hafiz – were wrongly implicated in the matter by MP Police.