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No SIMI activity in U.P. since 2003: Minister

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Government on Wednesday said that it was committed to saving the State and the country from terrorism. Stating that prompt action had been taken against the accused in terror acts, the Government denied that U.P. had become a nerve centre of terror outfits.

Replying to the debate on terrorist activities and the role of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in the recent serial bomb blasts, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Lalji Verma, said during the Zero Hour in the Assembly that since 2003 no activity of SIMI has been witnessed in the State.

Mr. Verma said between 1998 and 2003 when the organization was banned for the first time by the Centre, 65 cases had been registered against SIMI activists in Uttar Pradesh.

On the arrest of Abu Bashar, the alleged mastermind of the July 26 serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, from Azamgarh, Mr. Verma said he was arrested through the joint efforts of the Gujarat police and the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Uttar Pradesh.

The Parliamentary Affairs Minister rejected the charge of Bharatiya Janata Party that the UP police and its security and intelligence agencies were inefficient in containing the menace. He said the security and intelligence units in 34 sensitive districts and on the State’s border have been upgraded and the ATS was constituted in 2007.

Raising the issue, Om Prakash Singh of the BJP said intelligence inputs on the recent bomb blasts pointed towards a UP-link to the terror acts.

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