SIMI sabotaging polio campaign: Nasik Police

In an affidavit filed in July with the Unlawful Activities Prevention Appellate Tribunal justifying continuation of the ban on SIMI, the Nashik (Rural) police has claimed that SIMI was using smaller Islamic organisations and sects to derail the polio programme by citing the involvement of WHO, a “foreign element”.

“SIMI, under the banner ‘Ummat Tehreeq’, had launched a strong campaign to discourage Muslims from responding to the programme launched in 1995,” said the affidavit, a copy of which was obtained by The Indian Express. According to the affidavit, Ummat Tehreeq is mostly active in and around Malegaon and Muslim-dominated pockets in the Marathwada region and Bhiwandi in Thane district.

“Ummat Tehreeq, an organisation which is led by ex-SIMI activists, operates in Muslim-dominated areas, propagating false messages of the polio dose being a dreadful way to cause impotency,” the affidavit says and adds that a door-to-door campaign was launched by it from the time SIMI was banned in 2001. The affidavit claims SIMI activists went around convincing Muslims in these areas to not “fall prey” to the monthly immunisation programme.

While the polio campaign faced a similar problem earlier from radical Muslim groups in some parts of Uttar Pradesh — the state with the highest number of polio cases — it has since sought to counter it by roping in community elders and clerics.

The affidavit, however, does not elaborate on specific instances. Superintendent of Police, Nashik (Rural), Nikhil Gupta, said he was not aware of the matter and needed to look up the affidavit. Maharashtra DGP A N Roy also said he was unaware of such claims being made by the Nashik (Rural) police.

Hakim Mohammad Ahmed Khan, general secretary of the All India Ulema Council, said they had already taken measures to tackle the anti-polio campaign....