08-18-2006, 11:50 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Crackdown on SIMI </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Anti-nationals never had it so good
Students Islamic Movement of India, banned on February 8 this year for the third time since its formation in 1977, continues to deviously work towards its proclaimed objective of "liberating India by converting it to Islam". According to a report in this newspaper Thursday, intelligence sources have pointed out how money collected during ramzan, the Muslim holy month, for ostensibly social purposes, is, through intricate but well organised network, finding its way towards the proscribed outfit. In other words, regardless of the legal injunction against it, SIMI's project of converting India into Darul Islam continues undeterred. Gullible Muslims donating in the hope of serving Allah are thus being exploited with virtually no remonstrance or action contemplated by their social leaders to warn them of the serious consequences their blind faith can have. But perhaps this would be too high an expectation from Muslim communitarian panjandrums considering the manner in which this downright anti-national organisation has been - and still is being - coddled by the political leadership in the country, mainly the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the Left Front in Kerala. Considering both the parties are either allied to or supporting the Congress-led UPA Government, shouldn't the Centre let the recalcitrant members of its bandwagon know that they could be held guilty of supping with the devil? Indeed, SIMI has a dismal history of working against national interest and undermining its ethos. Its members openly claim Quran to be their only constitution, jihad as the only way and shahadat as their only desire. With a volunteer base of 20,000, this organisation could churn out suicide bombers - holy warriors in their parlance - by scores every month. And still the ruling dispensation allows itself to be pushed around by its allies when it comes to taking iron-fisted action against SIMI.
Apart from its widely reported role in the Mumbai blasts on July 11, the rabid outfit has a number of other serious charges against it. Four members of a family out of a total of the six arrests made following the assault in the Ayodhya temple complex this year were associated with SIMI. All the eight accused in the Ghatkopar explosion in December 2002 were alleged volunteers of SIMI. In November 2004, Maulana Nasiruddin, chief of the Tahaffuz Shari'at-e Islam with links to SIMI was arrested from Hyderabad in connection with his suspected role in the murder of former Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya. These are but a handful of instances when the ansars of SIMI have fallen foul with not just the law of the land but the very idea of India. Yet, leading political parties, two of which are ruling major Indian States, think nothing of patronising the terror module that SIMI doubtless is. Meanwhile, the Centre is either too effete or too preoccupied with its own survival to crush this menace.
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
Anti-nationals never had it so good
Students Islamic Movement of India, banned on February 8 this year for the third time since its formation in 1977, continues to deviously work towards its proclaimed objective of "liberating India by converting it to Islam". According to a report in this newspaper Thursday, intelligence sources have pointed out how money collected during ramzan, the Muslim holy month, for ostensibly social purposes, is, through intricate but well organised network, finding its way towards the proscribed outfit. In other words, regardless of the legal injunction against it, SIMI's project of converting India into Darul Islam continues undeterred. Gullible Muslims donating in the hope of serving Allah are thus being exploited with virtually no remonstrance or action contemplated by their social leaders to warn them of the serious consequences their blind faith can have. But perhaps this would be too high an expectation from Muslim communitarian panjandrums considering the manner in which this downright anti-national organisation has been - and still is being - coddled by the political leadership in the country, mainly the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the Left Front in Kerala. Considering both the parties are either allied to or supporting the Congress-led UPA Government, shouldn't the Centre let the recalcitrant members of its bandwagon know that they could be held guilty of supping with the devil? Indeed, SIMI has a dismal history of working against national interest and undermining its ethos. Its members openly claim Quran to be their only constitution, jihad as the only way and shahadat as their only desire. With a volunteer base of 20,000, this organisation could churn out suicide bombers - holy warriors in their parlance - by scores every month. And still the ruling dispensation allows itself to be pushed around by its allies when it comes to taking iron-fisted action against SIMI.
Apart from its widely reported role in the Mumbai blasts on July 11, the rabid outfit has a number of other serious charges against it. Four members of a family out of a total of the six arrests made following the assault in the Ayodhya temple complex this year were associated with SIMI. All the eight accused in the Ghatkopar explosion in December 2002 were alleged volunteers of SIMI. In November 2004, Maulana Nasiruddin, chief of the Tahaffuz Shari'at-e Islam with links to SIMI was arrested from Hyderabad in connection with his suspected role in the murder of former Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya. These are but a handful of instances when the ansars of SIMI have fallen foul with not just the law of the land but the very idea of India. Yet, leading political parties, two of which are ruling major Indian States, think nothing of patronising the terror module that SIMI doubtless is. Meanwhile, the Centre is either too effete or too preoccupied with its own survival to crush this menace.
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