Killed SIMI activists accused of heinous crimes
It is shocking but not surprising that the so-called liberals of this country are beating their chests over the killing of eight members of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) by security forces in Bhopal on Monday. The way they have lamented would make anyone believe that all these accused were innocent bystanders. It is disheartening to note that initially none of the liberals had even expressed concern over the death of the head constable who was killed by the militants when they escaped from prison. Besides making claims and counter claims over the issue of the slain SIMI inmates, the liberals must see how deeply they are demoralising our security forces and their actions. It must be brought to the public that all the deceased members were allegedly involved in several cases for which they were undergoing trial. They were suspected to have links with the blasts that had occurred in Ahmedabad, Bijnor, Pune and Chennai respectively in 2008, 2014 and in 2015; the murder of an Anti-Terrorism Squad constable in Khandwa in 2009; nearly 16 bank robberies in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and in Telangana; and the Khandwa jail break in 2013, to name a few. Though they have not been convicted so far by the court, it must be highlighted that they were no ordinary accused; they had been kept in highly-secure jails.
SIMI was banned by the Government in 2001, and this ban was subsequently extended on occasions. Its gradual shift from a student movement to radical Islamic beliefs in the 1990s, had forced the Government to check the organisation. There were reports that SIMI was supplying fresh recruits to the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and Pakistan-based terror outfits. Over the years, SIMI was found to have been closely associated with activities like radicalisation, training, networking and finally, executing militant attacks through Muslim youth across the country on several occasions. It was reported that by 2001, SIMI had the strength of 400 full-time activists called ‘Ansars’, and 20,000 regular members and agencies all over Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar and West Bengal. This shows how SIMI was growing and attracting youth to be a part of its subversive activities. Prominent SIMI leaders like Ashraf Jaffrey, Yasin Falahi, Jameel Siddiqui and Safdar Nagori had hailed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin laden as their “brother”. In the past, SIMI leaders were motivating their recruits to ‘liberate’ India and restore an Islamic society so as to practise true Islamic values on the lines of the lashkar-e-Tayyeba of Pakistan. Security agencies found hints of SIMI’s involvement in the bomb blast that took place in Patna at an election rally addressed by then BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in 2013. All these and many other evidences have raised concerns about the hidden agenda of SIMI. Now the moot question is, how does the state handle hardcore elements when they are caught. Unlike the Western jails, where such inmates are kept in solitary confinement, in India, we don’t have enough infrastructure to enforce such security measures. The Government needs to find ways for the safe-keeping of such undertrials so as to prevent further radicalisation.