Seven years after the September 9 World Trade Center attacks spelt the first ban for Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), two profiles about the organisation continue to clash — one that of a ghost which “has ceased to exist” and the other of a “group of youths and students easily influenced by hard-core Muslim terrorist organisations operating from within the country and abroad”. Both profiles came to fore in July 2008 before the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal, comprising Delhi High Court judge, Justice Gita Mittal, set up to decide on the question of a fourth consecutive ban on the SIMI. Probe agencies say Indian Mujahideen, reported to be behind the blasts in Delhi, is a front for SIMI.

The author of the first description about SIMI, Shahid Badar, the organisation's president during the first ban in September 2001, stated on oath before the Tribunal that “SIMI has ceased to exist after the first ban”. “SIMI does not endure any illegal or violent activities and has issued strong press statements condemning illegal and violent activities,” the organisation says in its affidavit.

But the Home Ministry's take on the SIMI has achieved the fourth ban for the latter in the Supreme Court, followed with an extension till October. The ministry, in its affidavit, describes SIMI as an association which is not only “financially sound” but capable of orchestrating frequent trans-border movements of its cadres to partner with international terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Toiba, the architect of the 2005 pre-Diwali blasts in Delhi, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

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