Cops suspect brothers set up SIMI network

NEW DELHI: An Islamist preacher’s son, picked up by the Hyderabad police on July 15, may have set up the SIMI networks that set off the blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad.

The preacher Moulana Naseerudin, is in a Gujarat jail charged with the assassination of former state home minister Haren Pandya. His younger son Riazuddin was arrested by the Karnataka police from Davangere on January 11 during a crackdown on violence-preaching SIMI factions. But it is the elder son Mohammed Muqeemuddin Yaser who is in focus now.

Though intelligence agencies do not yet specifically know the mastermind behind the blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, they are convinced the entire operation and the email sent just seconds before the blasts in Ahmedabad, carry the hallmark
of the Students Islamic Movement of India.

“We knew about 20 to 30 key SIMI leaders who were planning attacks. Most of them are in police custody. What we don’t really know is the second rung network of SIMI,” a senior official said. He said key among the second rung of this homegrown terror group are people that Mohammed had recruited and sent from Hyderabad and surrounding areas to Karnataka and elsewhere.

Sources said Mohammed had send Muslim recruits from Andhra Pradesh to Karnataka in search of safe hideouts in recent times, and for reconnaissance. In the wake of the Ahmedabad blasts, investigators are convinced that a significant number of local terrorists from Gujarat are also involved in the terror activities. But it isn’t clear if they are all part of the same network, or if the south Indian group and the one in Gujarat are operating independently.  

One reason for this possibility is the fact that the email sent out just before the Ahmedabad blasts does not talk about the Bangalore blasts.

Sources in all the key intelligence agencies told DNA they are closely investigating the networks set up by Mohammed who was picked up in Hyderabad on July 15 by the state police. While the father was head of the fundamentalist Tahreek-E-Tahafuz-E-Shyar-E-Islam, both the sons are active members of SIMI.

They represent the new picture of terror emerging across India —- a strong local network, with some members trained in Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere. But the groups remain primarily local, assembling bombs using locally available material and planting it strategically to get maximum impact. It is still not clear if Mohammed was the mastermind behind the recent blasts, but his recruits are emerging as the most credible trail to follow, sources said.

Mohammed’s younger brother Riazuddin was arrested by the Karnataka police on January 11, 2008, from Davangere district in the first significant success against SIMI’s violence-preaching faction. Riazuddin had undergone terror training in Pakistan and spent a lot of time with Shahid Bilal, another Hyderabad resident who was believed to be the mastermind behind the strike in Hyderabad and some other terrorist operations in India. Bilal was shot dead in Karachi on August 30, 2007.

While Riazuddin and Bilal had provided the SIMI faction and other local terrorists direct access to explosives training and resource support from Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere, the people behind the present attacks do not seem to have such a level of outside support, sources say. But they have a huge local network that enabled them to carry out such widespread serial blasts in two major cities.

Riazuddin’s arrest unravelled the inner layer of SIMI, and led to the arrest of several SIMI leaders from various parts of Karnataka and Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

The email sent out to media houses and the Gujarat police on Saturday before the Ahmedabad blasts follows the same pattern as the email sent out before the serial blasts in Uttar Pradesh in November last year and the blasts in Jaipur in May, sources said.

The emails have clear demands for release of Muslims accused of terrorism in Indian jails. Investigators believe the emails are genuine and they are clear indicators of what could lie ahead: More unexpected attacks and probably even some other kind of violent acts such as kidnappings or hijack that may have better leverage with government to get people out of jail.

Investigators are also concerned about a terror strike in Madhya Pradesh, because it was from the state that key SIMI leaders were arrested. And given the trend of targeting BJP-ruled states and MP’s significance as SIMI’s home base, sources said MP figures high on their list of targets vulnerable to attack; the other being Goa which was the original target of the SIMI faction before their leadership was nabbed by the
Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh police forces.