Police probe links of SIMI fronts to Hyderabad blasts

Hyderabad, March 29 : The Hyderabad police are trying to verify the involvement of a few frontal organisations of the banned SIMI in the May 18 Mecca Masjid blast and August 25 twin blasts. Since it was banned for the third time in July 2006, SIMI set up several religious institutions or groups through which it found a way to continue its activities.

Darsgah-e-Jihad-o-Shahadat and Tehrik Tahfuz-e-Shair-e-Islam are two of the religious groups based in Hyderabad that the police suspect are fronts of the SIMI which may be involved in the blasts. Maulana Naseeruddin of the Tehrik Tahfuz-e-Shair-e-Islam was arrested by Gujarat Police in 2004 for his involvement in the murder of former Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya.

Hyderabad police commissioner Prasad Rao said there were a few religious groups, NGOs and madrasas, which would be probed "to ascertain if they have any links to the SIMI". "Using these front organisations for their ideological ends seems a possibility and clues should come out of the interrogation of Mohtasim Billa," he said.

The police have now sought seven days to interrogate the 21-year-old civil engineering student, Mohtasim Billa, whose father Maulana Abdul Aleem Islahi is a known SIMI activist and runs a madrasa for women in the Saidabad area. Billa told police that several top SIMI leaders used to visit his house to meet his father. Though Billa, who was arrested on March 5, revealed that he was a member of Al-Umma, a Tamil Nadu based organisation responsible for the 1998 Coimbatore blasts, he has not yet revealed his own links with SIMI or any other front organisations, or his involvement in the blasts. Sources said since there was no evidence yet of the direct involvement of SIMI in the blasts, it might have used any of its front organisations for the purpose, and that Billa, whose house was a meeting point of activists from various groups, was the key.

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