The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : 6 suspected SIMI leaders under scanner

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Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

6 suspected SIMI leaders under scanner

G. Anand

Cadre organisation may be cover for SIMI, say police

SIMI hardliners have links with divisive elements
Campus-based body suspected to be spreading SIMI ideals

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The police have verified at least six suspected former Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) leaders in the city in the wake of the recent bomb blasts in North India. They include a homoeopathy doctor, a teacher and some computer businessmen. Some of them functioned as district-level office-bearers of the SIMI until the organisation was banned under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in 2001. After the ban, the leaders joined a mainstream cadre organisation which the government suspects is a cover for SIMI in Kerala. Many of the former SIMI leaders in the city are now in the Gulf.

Police Intelligence believes that SIMI leaders are not very active in the city. Its hardliners are more active in Ernakulam (Rural), Idukki and Malappuram districts. The few SIMI hardliners in the city have strong links with certain “divisive elements” who wield considerable physical and financial clout in the remote Uliyannor and Kunjunikkara backwater localities near Kodungalloor in Aluva police station limits.

These areas have no road connectivity and are accessible only by boat. Local people have reported to the police the presence of strangers at night in a large walled compound in one of the backwater neighbourhoods.

The police said youngsters working for a cover organisation of SIMI sympathisers regularly held military-style parades on Sunday mornings at a large ground near Pathinarukallu Mandapam at Vallakadavu. The Fort police arrested a few of them in May on the charge of kidnapping and torturing a local youth. They said the group wielded physical clout in the area and regularly tortured their opponents near the parade ground at night. The gang owned nearly 30 motorbikes altered for more power. The exercise stopped temporarily after the recent explosions in North India.

The police alleged that a 36-year-old Opposition party member headed the gang. Officials said he used his political status in the neighbourhood as a cover for his alleged criminal and divisive activities.

The police suspect that a campus-based organisation was spreading SIMI ideals among a small section of students in college hostels in the city. It often held personality, spiritual and leadership development classes for hostellers as a cover to convert impressionable youngsters (including those hailing from the Scheduled Castes and backward communities) to their cause.

Officials said a suburban government-aided college in the district was the “hot bed of new generation” SIMI sympathisers in the district.

They are concerned that the organisation is having growing influence among a section of engineering and medical students (chiefly a few in Medical College Hospital (MCH), Thiruvananthapuram).

In March this year, as many as 27 students were injured in a clash at the MCH men’s hostel. The police said the clash was between a new political front on the campus led by suspected SIMI sympathisers and opposing left wing student activists.

The police are also concerned about the illegal diversion of explosives (chiefly from quarries in the neighbouring district of Tamil Nadu) for criminal purposes in the district. A small section of fishermen use the explosives, illegally, for fishing off Vizhinjam. They fear the bulk of the smuggled explosives (primarily in fishing boats from Tamil Nadu) could fall into the hands of divisive elements.

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