Maharashtra ATS to bring SIMI leaders from MP

Mumbai, Apr 18 (UNI) A team of officers of the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra police today left for Indore to take custody of Safdar Nagori, chief of banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), and its south India chief Shibly Pedical Abdul, who have been arrested by Madhya Pradesh police.

According to ATS sources, the top leaders of SIMI will be brought to the city for a detailed investigation into their involvement in the series of terrorist acts that occurred in the Metropolis as well as other parts of Maharashtra.

The team of six ATS officers left the city this morning along with the transfer remand and relevant documents, required to be produced in the local court, before seeking their custody, the sources added.

The police custody of both the accused and their associates will end today in a local court at Indore.

The ATS recently traced the mobile records of Shibly, who was in Mumbai on July 11 2006, the day of the train blasts, and left the next day. The police had traced the telephone calls to Shibly's mobile phone from public booths from interior Maharashtra. Their custody, could lead to the uncovering of the hidden activities of SIMI in the state and lead to more arrests, the ATS said.

''They are certainly trying to build their network in Maharashtra by motivating people from the interiors as they think that they are not under our vigilance. We have traced the mobile phone records of Shibly and we will make optimum use of their custody to find out about their activities in the state,'' ATS joint Commissioner of police Hemant Karkare said.

According to Mr Karkare, Shibly, originally from Kerala, had joined the outfit six years back and had risen significantly in the hierarchy. ''Shibly was more violent than his counterparts and believes in direct action. He was charting his own course within the outfit and in favour of punishing those who came in the way of their ideology,'' Mr Karkare said.

''We might seek narco-analysis tests on both if it is called for after the preliminary inquiries'', he said.

More than five states, including UP, Delhi and Karnataka, are already in the queue to seek their custody in several cases in their respective states.

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