Bengal starts crackdown on SIMI, asks BSF to mount vigil in border

Kolkata, Jul 13 (UNI) Police in West Bengal started a crackdown on SIMI activists throughout the state while the Government had asked Border Security Force(BSF) to mount vigil along the India-Bangladesh border following the serial blast in Mumbai.

" Police have started crackdown on SIMI. The organisation is already banned and has no office above ground. But it is our experience that wherever there is Islamic fundamentalist activity, SIMI seems to have a link with it, " Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray told reporters.

Mr Ray said police had also been asked to keep watch on hotels, guest houses and travel agencies dealing with Bangladeshi nationals as preventive measure against any suspicious activity. Taking lessons from the Mumbai experience, the intelligence department was also keeping tab on metro railway stations, parking lots of shopping malls and other public places.

Yesterday, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee reviewed the security system in the state and the situation along the India-Bangladesh border in a meeting with Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb, Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray and BSF DG Asish Kumar Mitra at a special meeting at the Writers' Buildings.

According to informed sources, it was being suspected by police and BSF that those involved in the blasts on Tuesday had entered West Bengal from across the Bangladesh border and made their way to Mumbai. It was possible that they might have taken the same route while returning after their operation, they said.

Though police had no definite clues so far, they were not ruling out the possibility of some extremists making Kolkata a hideout for themselves, the sources said.

The state Government had already sounded an alert throughout the state after the Chief Minister talked to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the possible security measures.

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