Significantly, Mohammad Aamir, the chief of SIMI's Uttar Pradesh State unit and the prime accused in the Kanpur riots of March 16, surrendered before a metropolitan magistrate on April 25 after spending a night with the police. Before the media could get a whiff of the surrender, Aamir, who is believed to have spent almost a year in terrorist training camps in Bangladesh, was ensconced in the barracks of Kanpur Jail. With pressure to act against Aamir mounting, the surrender proved a convenient way out for the State Government, after an earlier plan for his surrender in March was aborted on grounds of political expediency.

The September 27, 2001, proscription under section 3(1) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, was intended to neutralize SIMI's capacities, which had become a source of visible threat to national security. However, the annual renewal of the proscription notwithstanding (the latest ban order was issued on February 8, 2006), the organisation has managed not only to continue with its not-so-covert activities in its traditional strongholds, but to extend activities into new areas. In an age when ‘zero tolerance' is the declared policy towards any terrorist challenge to India's security, the official response has been marked by a typical mix of administrative lethargy, political opportunism and a lack of a coherent policy.

Before its proscription, SIMI enjoyed a close working relationship with the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) in Bangladesh and its students' wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS). Over the years, while old linkages have continued, a new nexus has been established with the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B). Investigations into the July 28, 2005, Shramjeevi Express explosion near Jaunpur and the Varanasi serial blasts of March 7, 2006, indicated a role played by SIMI ansars (full-time cadres) and the HuJI-B's cadres/agents. The prime conspirator of the Varanasi blasts, thirty-two year Waliullah, the Pesh Imam of Phulpur in Allahabad, who was arrested on April 5 near Gosainganj, on the outskirts of Lucknow, was a SIMI ansar who had earlier been arrested in 2001, along with three of his brothers, on charges of harbouring terrorists. Mohammad Zubair, a resident of Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh, who was involved in the attacks in Varanasi's Sankatmochan Temple and the Railway Station and was subsequently gunned down in the Handwara area in the Kashmir Valley, was also a SIMI cadre. Babu Bhai, the man behind the Shramjeevi Express blasts near Jaunpur, was, again, a SIMI ansar who received training at an ICS-run training camps in Ukhia, Bangladesh.

These three young men were products of a continuous recruitment drive by SIMI cadres for the HuJI-B in Uttar Pradesh's Jaunpur, Allahabad, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ambedkar Nagar, Aligarh, Azamgarh, Sonauli, Ferozabad, Hathras areas. Till the first quarter of the current year, SIMI old-timers like Mohammad Aamir, Mohammad Salman, Mohammad Rehan and Shariq Fahim, most of whom have spent time in Bangladesh, were in charge of such operations. SIMI cadres, according to sources, are also involved in safe transportation of explosives, as well as the creation of channels for funds and securing safe houses for HUJI-B cadres.

SIMI's operations in the southern State of Kerala reflect a different modus operandi. Here, SIMI operates under the cover of some 12 front organisations, at least two of which are based in the capital, Thiruvananthapuram, and a third in the port city of Kochi. Kondotty in Malappuram District has also emerged as a hot-bed of SIMI activities. An official declaration submitted on June 1, 2006, by the State Government before the tribunal examining the legality of the ban on SIMI, indicated that the outfit's cadres had ‘lately' developed links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Reports from various agencies, including the State Police Special Branch further indicate that SIMI is operating under the cover of religious study centres, rural development and research centres. Some of these front organisations were spreading "extremist religious ideals" among sections of youth in Kerala by acting under the guise of "counselling and guidance centres working for behavioural change". SIMI is also reported to have established a women's wing in Kerala. Generous funds for such activities flow in from contacts in Kuwait and Pakistan.

SIMI activists have reportedly been meeting covertly in different parts of the State to increase their network of associates and sympathisers. The State Crime Branch is currently investigating the role played by SIMI cadres in the murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) zilla seva pramukh (District President), N. Sunil Kumar, on May 9, 2006. Official sources maintain that SIMI's covert activities in the State were given a boost after 25 of its key activists met at Chinthavilappu in Kozhikode some time in 2005. A religious scholar from Minicoy in Lakshadweep had also given discourses with a strong fundamentalist message in Malappuram at the behest of SIMI activists. Similar community ‘get-togethers' have been organised by SIMI activists in Thrissur and Kozhikode in the recent past.

In the western State of Maharastra, areas such as Aurangabad, Malegaon, Jalgaon and Thane have remained SIMI strongholds. Following the death of Irfan Moinuddin Attar, the Kolhapur-based Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) cadre, killed in an encounter near Tral town in the Pulwama District of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) on May 30, 2006, the police are maintaining a close vigil on SIMI activists in the State. Irfan was engaged in terrorist activities in J&K under the name of Janbaaz Hizbi after a stint in the madrassas (seminaries) of Shirol and Udgam in Kolhapur District, and a subsequent stay in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Intelligence agencies indicate that madrassas in the Districts of Jalgaon, Nashik, Thane, Sholapur, Kolhapur, Gadchiroli, Nanded, Aurangabad, Malegaon and Pune have been brought under the scanner for SIMI activities. There are more than 3,000 madrassas in the State, with about 200,000 students. As many as 500 madrassas are located in the State capital, Mumbai. Sources indicate that many of these madrassas are potential breeding grounds for SIMI's activities.

SIMI activists, over the years, have also become a vital part of the LeT's grand plans for destabilisation in India. The Maharashtra Police suspect that the three LeT terrorists who came to Nagpur to attack the RSS headquarters on June 1 used the SIMI network in arranging arms and ammunition for the task. The seizure of 30 kilograms of RDX, 17 AK-47s and 50 hand grenades from Aurangabad and Malegaon between May 9 and 12 and subsequent arrests of 11 LeT terrorists pointed to similar linkages. Most of the hideouts used by the LeT cadres belonged to SIMI activists. Even the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai police had named a former SIMI member, Zainuddin Ansari, as the LeT appointee in the Marathwada region, including Parbhani, Aurangabad and Beed.

The LeT has reportedly conducted aggressive recruitments in both Maharashtra and Gujarat and SIMI appears to have provided it with manpower for this drive. The outfit is believed to be specially targeting well-educated and technically sound persons for its operations. At least four of the 11 LeT operatives arrested from Aurangabad and Beed were well-educated and technically competent. Dr. Sharif Ahmed, arrested from Aurangabad on May 15, is a doctor. Bilal Ansari, another Lashkar operative, is a professional calligraphist, Sayyed Jafruddin is a second year Bachelor of Science student and is proficient in computers. Still evading arrest is Zahibuddin Ansari alias Zaby who is a graduate and an electrician.

Mohammed Amir Shakeel Ahmad Sheikh is another SIMI activist arrested in the arms haul case. Sheikh had come under the intelligence scanner for the first time in 1999 after he made a provocative speech at a meeting of SIMI members, which was attended by Azam Ghauri, a top LeT commander. Azam Ghauri was shot dead by the Hyderabad Police in Karimnagar on April 6, 2000. Ahmed — a high school dropout — was then trailed by intelligence officials for several months. But his links with LeT could not be established. Following his recent arrest, it has now come to light that Ahmad and at least five other SIMI members were the first to be recruited by the Lashkar in the name of jihad.

SIMI's activities have also continued in Assam and West Bengal, where the organisation has infiltrated madrassas, Muslim clubs, libraries, and other cultural bodies for covert mobilisation of Islamist forces. In 2003, SIMI activists have operated from the platform of ‘Islamic Siksha Shivirs' (Islamic Educational Camps) in Mograhat in the North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. A two-day ‘workshop' organised in the District between August 31 and September 1 had, in fact, finalised the outfit's infiltration plans. Sources indicate that in August 2003, one Jamaluddin Chaudhory of the ICS had taken seven SIMI activists from Assam and West Bengal to residential madrassas in Chittagong, Rangpur and Dhaka for ‘higher Islamic studies'. Additionally, some hardcore SIMI activists from Malda and South 24 Parganas had crossed over to Bangladesh for higher studies in Islamic theology at a Saudi-funded private institution in Chittagong. In the 2004 general elections, SIMI had backed the newly floated ‘Indian National League (INL)', which put up candidates in six constituencies of Jangipur, Murshidabad, Diamond Harbour, Basirhat, Jadavpur and Kolkata North-West. Senior SIMI leader Hasan Saidullah Ashrafi contested the Basirhat seat from the INL platform and finished seventh among eight candidates polling just 4,780 valid votes.

While the Centre has continued with the annual renewal of the ban on SIMI, there are indications that there is a rethink on this in certain political quarters. Electoral considerations, for instance, appear to be influencing the Uttar Pradesh Government, where a State Home Department spokesperson stated in May that since the organisation was not involved in "any activities" and neither had Uttar Pradesh received any complaint against SIMI, it would not support the continuation of the ban. Further, in the first week of June, the Sunni Central Waqf Board in Uttar Pradesh appointed Mohammad Ismail Syed Shareef, a leather industrialist and a known SIMI sympathiser as the caretaker and manager of Kanpur city's oldest and biggest seminary — the Jaam-e-Uloom.

The threat from SIMI has far from abated, but the politics of expediency is already being revived. If the policy of competitive appeasement currently adopted by the UP Government finds takers in other States as well, and in sections of the political leadership at the Centre, the gains of the past five years could easily be reversed.

The writer is a Research Fellow at Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi, India

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