Bangalore/New Delhi: Cadres of banned
Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) are understood to
have been fast regrouping under the banner of Popular Front of
India (PFI), an outfit which has expanded its tentacles to
north after carrying out initial recruitment in south India.
This, according to an arrested militant Madoor Isubbu --
a person considered as a vital link in the terror groups-ISI-
underworld-Naxals nexus, was aimed at keeping the flock of
SIMI together after it was banned on February eight, 2006.
Sources privy to interrogation of Madoor, who was nabbed
in Bangalore by police earlier this week on his return from a
Gulf country, said ISI and other terror modules in Pakistan
were worried over the depleting cadre strength of SIMI and
were working out plans to keep them under one banner.
However, when contacted, Rizwan, PFI`s Office Secretary,
said that this was a "wrong information" and the
authorities were deliberately trying to "tarnish" the image of
the organization. He also distanced his group from the Kerala
incident of chopping off the hands of a professor who had
prepared a question paper allegedly insulting Islam.
SIMI cadres had earlier formed Wahadat-e-Islami which,
however, could not sustain majority of its cadres who moved on
to groups like Indian Mujahideen while some managed to shift
to Pakistan through Bangladesh and some Gulf countries.
Madoor claimed before interrogators that funds were being
pumped in by Pakistan`s ISI for SIMI through hawala
transactions from Gulf countries and it is also making
attempts to woo Naxal groups, the sources said.
SIMI has since been banned thrice by the government and
the organisation has lost its case in the Supreme Court
seeking lifting of the ban.
36-year-old Madoor, a native of a village near Ullal in
Dakshina Kannada district, was allegedly involved in over 17
criminal cases since 2001, including four murders, six attempt
to murder, besides extortion and rioting.
He had been on the wanted list since 2003, when he jumped
bail in two cases of communal rioting in Ullal and fled to
Saudi Arabia, from where he began his operations using local
associates in Mangalore, the sources said.
PTI
