MP link to Bengaluru blast: How the state allowed SIMI to deepen its networks

Dropped ‘catches’ by the butter-fingered Madhya Pradesh government are proving expensive for the nation’s security. Sunday’s explosion in Bengaluru is suspected to be the handiwork of the five Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) operatives who escaped from a jail in Madhya Pradesh in October last year.

According to sources in the intelligence agencies, the five have kept busy ever since, looting a bank in Karimnagar in Telangana and triggering bomb blasts in at least two places in the country. They are believed to have been in Bengaluru at the time of the Chruch Street blast.

SIMI has made the most of the laxity of the state government and rapidly spread its network in the state. Mocking the ban imposed on it 13 years ago, the organisation has spread its presence to 21 out of 51 districts in Madhya Pradesh. The organisation had its activities in three districts before the BJP government took over 11 years ago.

“The explosives used in Bengaluru were similar to the ones used in the blasts in Roorkee, Pune and Chennai earlier this year and bore the imprint of the SIMI module that has been active since five of its members escaped from Khandwa jail in October 2013,” say officials in counter-terrorism agencies.

“It’s a matter of concern. They (SIMI members) are anti-nationals and working in support of one religion,” says Home Minister Babulal Gaur and listed Bhopal, Indore, Khandwa, Ratlam, Burhanpur, Jabalpur and Ujjain among the 21 districts. Gaur, who has also been the former chief minister of the state, recently presented the report card after the periodic review of his ministry.

According to Gaur, 28 SIMI activists have been kept in the Bhopal central jail. The five who escaped were led by Abu Faisal alias Doctor. The others were Aijazuddin, Mehboob, Zakir Hussain, Amjad Khan and Aslam Ayub. Only Faisal was apprehended a couple of months later.

After their escape the state police blamed the jail authorities and claimed that a constable had helped the convicts. The matter is being investigated. But there has been little progress over the past 14 months.

After the Khandwa jailbreak, the Madhya Pradesh high court had ordered to shift trials involving SIMI members to Bhopal. SIMI activists had threatened to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May this year. They raised pro-Taliban slogans while being taken from court to the jail in Bhopal. Since then the court has been conducting video trials for them.

The intelligence agencies had inputs to suggest that SIMI operatives had planned to revive the organisation by raising money and trying to seek the release of their supreme commander Safdar Nagori lodged in Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad. During the earlier abortive jailbreak plot to seek Nagori’s release from Sabaramati in February the Khandwa operatives were still in jail. But, many crimes have been attributed to them since October last year.

Abu Faisal had confessed to masterminding at least five bank robberies in Madhya Pradesh. SIMI involvement was suspected in a bank robbery in Karimnagar district of Telangana in February. Karimnagar police claim SIMI operatives who escaped during the Khandwa jailbreak are suspected. Similarly, Patna police officers were tipped off about involvement of SIMI activists in the Rs 1-crore loot from a cash-loaded van of a nationalised bank on 13 May.

The role of SIMI is also suspected in a Rs 15 lakh robbery from Nadan branch of Madhyanchal Rural Bank in Maihar police station in Satna. Even before the Khandwa jailbreak, involvement of SIMI was reported in a heist in Bhopal in which around Rs 2.5 crore of gold was looted in August 2010 from a finance company.

Intelligence Bureau had last alerted the police that the same five could carry out attacks in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. Intelligence officials have expressed dismay that so many alerts they shared by them have been ignored. These youths have constantly been dodging the police and it has become an embarrassment for them.

Intelligence agencies say that the SIMI activists carry out very few acts of violence in Madhya Pradesh but the state continues to be a key centre for them to strategise. Even more alarming is the input about youth being enlisted to spread communal hatred. Former Director General of Police Arun Gurtu says if the government has admitted to the spread of SIMI’s activities in the state it should also reveal its action plan to deal with them.