Steady Subversion

This article, which was written soon after the Supreme Court upheld theban on Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), but before the Mumbaiblasts of July 11, becomes especially relevant in light of the fact that theAnti Terror Squad (ATS) has arrested as many as 200 people, majority of whom areSIMI activists, in connection with the blasts, and as the organisation comesunder the scanner in West Bengal, Andhra and Gujarat, the UP chief minister,Mulayam Singh Yadav's clean chit to it today, is widely seen as nothing butblatant and cynical political expediency, in view of the forthcoming polls inUP.

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On July 6, 2006, the Supreme Court upheld the ban on the Students IslamicMovement of India (SIMI) rejecting a petition that claimed that the organisationhad not been found to engage in any terrorist activities.

Significantly,Mohammad Aamir, the chief of SIMI's Uttar Pradesh state unit and the primeaccused in the Kanpur riots of March 16, surrendered before a metropolitanmagistrate on April 25 after spending a night with the police. Before the mediacould get a whiff of the surrender, Aamir, who is believed to have spent almosta year in terrorist training camps in Bangladesh, was ensconced in the barracksof Kanpur jail. With pressure to act against Aamir mounting, the surrenderproved a convenient way out for the state government, after an earlier plan forhis 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 asource of visible threat to national security. However, the annual renewal ofthe proscription notwithstanding (the latest ban order was issued on February 8,2006), the organisation has managed not only to continue with its not-so-covertactivities in its traditional strongholds, but to extend activities into newareas. In an age when ‘zero tolerance' is the declared policy towards anyterrorist challenge to India's security, the official response has been markedby a typical mix of administrative lethargy, political opportunism and a lack ofa coherent policy.

Before itsproscription, 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 beenestablished with the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B).Investigations into the July 28, 2005, Shramjeevi Express explosion near Jaunpurand the Varanasi serial blasts of March 7, 2006, indicated a role played by SIMIansars (full-time cadres) and the HuJI-B's cadres/agents. The primeconspirator of the Varanasi blasts, thirty-two year Waliullah, the Pesh Imam ofPhulpur in Allahabad, who was arrested on April 5 near Gosainganj, on theoutskirts of Lucknow, was a SIMI ansar who had earlier been arrested in2001, along with three of his brothers, on charges of harbouring terrorists.Mohammad Zubair, a resident of Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh, who was involved inthe attacks in Varanasi's Sankatmochan Temple and the Railway Station and wassubsequently gunned down in the Handwara area in the Kashmir Valley, was also aSIMI cadre. Babu Bhai, the man behind the Shramjeevi Express blasts near Jaunpur,was, again, a SIMI ansar who received training at an ICS-run trainingcamps in Ukhia, Bangladesh.

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

SIMI's operations inthe southern state of Kerala reflect a different modus operandi. Here,SIMI operates under the cover of some 12 front organisations, at least two ofwhich are based in the capital, Thiruvananthapuram, and a third in the port cityof Kochi. Kondotty in Malappuram District has also emerged as a hot-bed of SIMIactivities. An official declaration submitted on June 1, 2006, by the state governmentbefore the tribunal examining the legality of the ban on SIMI, indicated thatthe outfit's cadres had ‘lately' developed links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).Reports from various agencies, including the state police special branch furtherindicate that SIMI is operating under the cover of religious study centres,rural development and research centres. Some of these front organisations werespreading "extremist religious ideals" among sections of youth inKerala by acting under the guise of "counselling and guidance centresworking for behavioural change". SIMI is also reported to have establisheda women's wing in Kerala. Generous funds for such activities flow in fromcontacts in Kuwait and Pakistan.

SIMI activists havereportedly been meeting covertly in different parts of the state to increasetheir network of associates and sympathisers. The state Crime Branch iscurrently investigating the role played by SIMI cadres in the murder of aRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) zilla seva pramukh (DistrictPresident), N. Sunil Kumar, on May 9, 2006. Official sources maintain thatSIMI's covert activities in the state were given a boost after 25 of its keyactivists met at Chinthavilappu in Kozhikode some time in 2005. A religiousscholar from Minicoy in Lakshadweep had also given discourses with a strongfundamentalist message in Malappuram at the behest of SIMI activists. Similarcommunity ‘get-togethers' have been organised by SIMI activists in Thrissurand Kozhikode in the recent past.

In the western stateof Maharastra, areas such as Aurangabad, Malegaon, Jalgaon and Thane haveremained SIMI strongholds. Following the death of Irfan Moinuddin Attar, theKolhapur-based Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) cadre, killed in an encounter near Traltown in the Pulwama District of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) on May 30, 2006, thepolice are maintaining a close vigil on SIMI activists in the state. Irfan wasengaged in terrorist activities in J&K under the name of Janbaaz Hizbi aftera stint in the madrassas (seminaries) of Shirol and Udgam in KolhapurDistrict, and a subsequent stay in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Intelligence agenciesindicate that madrassas in the Districts of Jalgaon, Nashik, Thane,Sholapur, Kolhapur, Gadchiroli, Nanded, Aurangabad, Malegaon and Pune have beenbrought under the scanner for SIMI activities. There are more than 3,000 madrassasin the state, with about 200,000 students. As many as 500 madrassas arelocated in the state capital, Mumbai. Sources indicate that many of these madrassasare potential breeding grounds for SIMI's activities.

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

The LeT hasreportedly conducted aggressive recruitments in both Maharashtra and Gujarat andSIMI appears to have provided it with manpower for this drive. The outfit isbelieved to be specially targeting well-educated and technically sound personsfor its operations. At least four of the 11 LeT operatives arrested fromAurangabad and Beed were well-educated and technically competent. Dr. SharifAhmed, arrested from Aurangabad on May 15, is a doctor. Bilal Ansari, anotherLashkar operative, is a professional calligraphist, Sayyed Jafruddin is a secondyear Bachelor of Science student and is proficient in computers. Still evadingarrest is Zahibuddin Ansari alias Zaby who is a graduate and an electrician.

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

SIMI's activitieshave also continued in Assam and West Bengal, where the organisation hasinfiltrated madrassas, Muslim clubs, libraries, and other cultural bodiesfor covert mobilisation of Islamist forces. In 2003, SIMI activists haveoperated from the platform of ‘Islamic Siksha Shivirs' (Islamic EducationalCamps) 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, infact, finalised the outfit's infiltration plans. Sources indicate that in August2003, one Jamaluddin Chaudhory of the ICS had taken seven SIMI activists fromAssam and West Bengal to residential madrassas in Chittagong, Rangpur andDhaka for ‘higher Islamic studies'. Additionally, some hardcore SIMI activistsfrom Malda and South 24 Parganas had crossed over to Bangladesh for higherstudies in Islamic theology at a Saudi-funded private institution in Chittagong.In the 2004 general elections, SIMI had backed the newly floated ‘IndianNational League (INL)', which put up candidates in six constituencies ofJangipur, Murshidabad, Diamond Harbour, Basirhat, Jadavpur and KolkataNorth-West. Senior SIMI leader Hasan Saidullah Ashrafi contested the Basirhatseat from the INL platform and finished seventh among eight candidates pollingjust 4,780 valid votes.

While the Centre hascontinued with the annual renewal of the ban on SIMI, there are indications thatthere is a rethink on this in certain political quarters. Electoralconsiderations, for instance, appear to be influencing the Uttar Pradesh government,where a state Home Department spokesperson stated in May that since theorganisation was not involved in "any activities" and neither hadUttar Pradesh received any complaint against SIMI, it would not support thecontinuation of the ban. Further, in the first week of June, the Sunni CentralWaqf Board in Uttar Pradesh appointed Mohammad Ismail Syed Shareef, a leatherindustrialist and a known SIMI sympathiser as the caretaker and manager ofKanpur city's oldest and biggest seminary — the Jaam-e-Uloom.

The threat from SIMIhas far from abated, but the politics of expediency is already being revived. Ifthe policy of competitive appeasement currently adopted by the UP governmentfinds takers in other states as well, and in sections of the politicalleadership at the Centre, the gains of the past five years could easily bereversed.

Bibhu Prasad Routrayis Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management. Courtesy, the SouthAsia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal