SIMI member facing trail threatens a witness

Indore, Sep 3: The sessions court here today directed the members of the banned outfit SIMI, who are undergoing a trial for waging war against the nation, to behave properly after a prosecution witness alleged that he was threatened by one of them.

Special additional sessions judge B K Paloda instructed all the accused to behave "in a restrained and disciplined manner" during the hearing.

Prosecution witness Atul Pathak told the court that after he had completed his deposition, Ahmed Baig, one of the accused, gestured at him to the effect that 'you would be cut down'.

Judge asked Baig about the allegation. Baig denied it, Public Prosecutor Vimal Mishra told reporters later.

During the hearing today, Pathak and another witness, Ashutosh Sharma, told the court that on April 2, 2008, SIMI leader Safdar Nagori, Kamruddin and Amil Pervez told the police in their (Sharma's and Pathak's) presence that SIMI activists had held a training camp at a farmhouse near Choral in Indore district.

At this camp, participants were trained in pistol-firing, bomb-making, horse-riding, etc. Nagori and others also confessed to have hidden explosives and inflammatory literature at the farmhouse which the police seized, the two witnesses told the court.

Nagori and 10 others are facing the charges of waging war against the nation (IPC section 121) and sedition (IPC section 124) among other offences.

PTI