Top SIMI leaders held in Indore

Indore, Mar 27 : The All India General Secretary of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Safdar Nagori, has been arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) of the Madhya Pradesh Police here along with ten members of the banned student organisation.

SIMI's southern zone chief Qibli was among those arrested.

The SIMI activists are being interrogated for further leads and some arms also have been seized from the spot of the arrests.

Police sources said security agencies had been trailing Nagori for a while and managed to track down the SIMI men, following a tip-off from intelligence agencies.

The crackdown against SIMI comes just a week after Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal told the Lok Sabha that the banned outfit and its associates were planning serial blasts in the country and the Centre has extended its ban imposed on SIMI for another two years.

Before his arrest, Nagori had been named in a First Information Report (FIR) for Unlawful Activities, registered at the New Friends Colony Police station in South Delhi and was declared a proclaimed offender in the case and had been absconding since September 27, 2001.

Nagori is alleged to have established links with the operatives of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's external intelligence agency, and other Islamist fundamentalist leaders in a bid to revive SIMI cadres under the umbrella of a different outfit.

ANI