UP not to support ban on SIMI

Lucknow, May 29 : While the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is set to be banned again shortly with the Centre issuing a show cause notice to the organisation, the Uttar Pradesh government has clarified that it will not support the move.

With this, the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government and the Union government are at loggerheads, once again.

A state home department spokesperson said since the organisation was not involved in ''any activities'' and in the absence of any complaint against SIMI, UP would not support the ban.

A show cause, meanwhile, was communicated to the UP Director General of Police (DGP) headquarters here, a senior police official confirmed.

The notice is part of the overall process to ban SIMI. The office of the Registrar, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal at Delhi, issues a show cause on anyone who wanted to plead the case.

It may be recalled that SIMI was banned by UP government few years ago.

The notice claimed the Centre had initiated the proceedings as per the notification dated February 6, 2006 published in the Gazette of India.

After the expiry of the notice period of 30 days, the final proceedings for announcing the ban will come into being.

The notice was released by the DGP headquarters here for public information.

This would be for the second time in recent weeks that the state government and the Centre are at loggerheads. Recently, as part of the much-hyped 'water-for-power deal, the UP government had agreed to release water for Delhi's Sonia Vihar water plant. In turn UP was to get additional power supply to tie over the increasing gap between demand and supply.

But a day after UP released water, state PWD minister and sibling of chief minister Mulayam Singh, Shivpal Singh Yadav alleged that Delhi was not honouring the agreement and UP was yet to get the additional power supply. ''While we gave them water despite protests from the farming community, we were yet to get power supply,'' he said.

Reacting to the state government's move ''defending SIMI'', BJP charged the CM with spreading terrorist activities in the state by protecting the organisation.

Talking to UNI over phone from Kanpur, UP BJP unit president Keshari Nath Tripathi said despite clear instructions from the centre, the state government has not evinced interest in banning SIMI. ''The policy of appeasement may cost the country dearly,'' he added. Mr Tripathi claimed that it has been proved beyond doubt that 34 UP districts are in the grip of terrorist activities.

A UP Congress spokesperson alleged that unlike Congress, the Samajwadi Party was more interested in politics of vote bank than defending the country from internal disturbances. ''The Centre's decision is based on merits,'' he added.

SIMI was formed at Aligarh on April 25, 1977. Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Professor of Journalism and Public Relations at the Western Illinois University Macomb, Illinois, was the founding President of the outfit. It originally emerged as an offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JeIH).

Dr Shahid Badar Falah functioned as the national president and Safdar Nagori as the secretary-general till the organisation was proscribed under the now defunct Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), 2002. The Delhi Police arrested Falah on September 28, 2001, from its office in the Zakir Nagar area of Delhi and he has subsequently been charged with sedition and inciting communal disharmony.

Currently, the outfit is reported to be operating underground under the leadership of Nagori. Nagori has been named in a First Information Report (FIR) under Section 3 of the Unlawful Activities Act, registered at the New Friends Colony Police station in South Delhi. Nagori, declared a Proclaimed Offender in the case, has been absconding since September 27, 2001.

The outfit is currently regarded as having a national presence with strong bases in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra (Aurangabad, Malegaon, Jalgaon and Thane), Andhra Pradesh and Asom.

UNI