Majilis cautions govt against appealing ban repeal on SIMI

New Delhi, Aug 6 (UNI) Hailing the quashing of a ban on Student Islamic Movement of India(SIMI) by a tribunal, All India Mulsim Majlis-E-Mushawarat today cautioned the government against appealing the verdict in the Supreme Court, saying it would amount to prolonging the agony of its victims by "misusing the process of law".

Instead "the Central government should offer an unconditional apology to the Muslim community and the victims" of the ban on SIMI, the Muslim body president Zafarul-Islam Khan said in a statement.

He said let those erstwhile SIMI activists, if they indulged in unlawful activities, be tried. "To punish a whole organisation and a whole community on "cooked-up and flimsy charges is a miscarriage of justice," Khan said.

Justice Geeta Mittal-headed tribunal yesterday quashed a ban on SIMI which was reimposed by the government in February for want of substansive evidence against it. SIMI was declared an unlawful body and banned in September 2001.

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