Rajnath Singh asks chief ministers to expedite terror cases

In an express letter to chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, union home minister Rajnath Singh has asked them to pay personal attention to expedite ongoing investigations in terror cases at the earliest.

In his letter to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Rajnath raised the issue of five SIMI terrorists that had escaped from Khandwa jail On October 1, 2013. Asking Chouhan to take urgent steps to apprehend them, Singh said it has emerged as a major security challenge to the country.

Singh said there are reasons to believe that this group of escaped SIMI terrorists has carried out bomb blasts and committed other crimes in different parts of the country.

"In fact, this group has emerged as a major security challenge to the country and has managed to successfully to evade arrest by the law enforcement agencies of different states," he wrote.

Based on the inputs provided by the central intelligence agencies, all states have also been asked to look for the five SIMI members -- Mohammad Aijajudden, Mohammad Aslam, Amjad Khan, Zakir Hussain Sadiq and Mehboob Guddu -- official sources said.

The home minister also sought help from Tamil Nadu chief minister Panneerselvam to apprehend the terrorists who perpetrated attack on a stationary train at Chennai railway station on May 1, 2014. In a letter to Karnataka chief minister Siddharamaiah, Singh asked to look personally into Bengaluru blast case of December 28, 2014.