BJP seeks white paper on SIMI's anti-India activities

New Delhi, Sep 3 (UNI) Asserting that it was reprehensible for the members of the Cabinet to publicly support and defend a banned organisation like SIMI, the BJP today demanded a white paper giving all the facts regarding the activities of the organisation endangering national security.

Jointly addressing a news conference here, Leader of the Opposition L K Advani and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said SIMI was an organisation which did not believe in non-violence and had a professed ideology of creating an Islamic nation. Its hands have been seen behind many of the attacks that had taken place for the last many years.

''After the ban, the organisation had been operational under the name of the Indian Mujahideen, claiming responsibility for the serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Surat.

''It was unfortunate that many leaders of the Congress-led UPA were at the doorsteps of the arrested Indian Mujahideen suspect in Azamgarh, the very evening he was detained for the Ahmedabad blasts.

Their conduct amounted to an expression of support towards SIMI and similar organisations in return for the sympathies of these communities,'' they alleged.

They said several Muslim leaders had protested that this kind of attitude would portray the community in a bad light because of the actions of a handful of miscreants.

Mr Advani, who had, earlier in the day, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that he had explained how the investigations by the Gujarat Police had unearthed the dangerous designs of SIMI, not just within the state, but outside its territory.

But the soft pedalling against terror at the highest levels of the country is not going to help at a time, when the nation should be responding unitedly to the challenges posed by the terrorists.

However, the Congress, in its effort to win the vote bank, had put the fight against terror in the backburner, the Opposition leader alleged.

He said Gujarat and other BJP-ruled states were also inconvenienced because the government was sitting over the Anti-Terror Bills passed by the Legislatures of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

''There should be a time frame specified for securing the Presidential assent, he added.

There should be measures to choke funds, weapons and training to the terrorist organisations. The border control measures should be stepped up in West Bengal and the Northeastern states, both Mr Advani and Mr Modi said.

It was indeed unfortunate that a senior Cabinet Minister was arguing for granting citizenship to the infiltrators, disregarding the observation of the Supreme Court that such infiltrations were ''external aggression'', they added.

Answering questions regarding the Orissa violence, Mr Advani said the violence was a reaction to the killing of Swamy Lakshmanananda and the state government had acted properly by setting up a judicial probe into the violence.

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