In a catch possibly reaching the nerve centre of the activities of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, the Corps of Detectives of the Karnataka police have arrested a former software engineer and discovered that he may be a key link to SIMI activities in India and to leaders of the group.

Mohammed Yahya Kammukutty, 31, hailing from Mukkom in Kozhikode district of Kerala, was arrested Thursday night as part of a continuing probe into a SIMI network in Karnataka that has already lead to the arrest of six youths from northern Karnataka, including four medical students.

Yahya is believed to have participated in one key meeting of at least 32 alleged SIMI cadre, including the six arrested so far, held in the Castle Rock forest region on the Karnataka-Goa border, last year. He is being shown as arrested, along with the others, in a case of conspiracy to wage war against the country registered with the Hubli police.

Police sources said Yahya who frequently travelled to Saudi Arabia was as a key supplier of funds for activities undertaken by the constituents of the proscribed outfit working under the guise of a new unit called SARANI.

Yahya is found to have come up on police and intelligence radars on at least one occasion in the past — including a police interrogation in early 2003 when he—then a 25-year-old—was found to have taken an alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba militant Muhammad Faisal Khan alias Abu Sultan on a tour of Kerala and also arranged his stay in Bangalore.

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