Author: Sharat Pradhan
in Lucknow
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: September 16,
2000
The Uttar Pradesh police
has tightened its dragnet on the Aligarh Muslim University, which was suspected
to have become a haven for some Kashmiri militants with alleged Pakistani
links.
In continuation of the
administration's drive to flush out such undesirable elements from the
campus, the police carried out searches in two of the hostels, but ended
up without laying their hands on anything substantial.
The state police built
up pressure on the university only after the Intelligence Bureau took exception
to the initial indifference shown by the district administration towards
the kidnapping and assault on the local IB man by some inmates of AMU's
Habib Hall last week.
However , what continues
to irk the IB top brass in New Delhi was the failure of the Aligarh district
administration in apprehending any of the eight students who were understood
to have been directly involved in the assault. It was primarily to
placate the IB that the local authorities on Saturday ordered attachment
of the property of each of the eight accused.
IB sources in Lucknow
do not role out the possibility of connivance of the local police and administrative
authorities in allowing the suspects to abscond. It is said that
the Aligarh district administration's reluctance to act swiftly when the
controversy broke out gave the suspects an opportunity to go underground.
Meanwhile, even as AMU
students were trying to give a communal colour to the government's crackdown
on some of the hostels , UP's principal home secretary V K Mittal was convinced
about the antecedents of the suspected students who were also members of
the Students Islamic Movement of India. Much about their direct nexus
with the militant outfit, Hisb-ul Mujahideen was divulged by Abdul Mobeen
, the AMU student who was arrested from Aligarh for his deep involvement
in the spate of bomb blasts on Independence day.
Mittal was quite explicit
in refuting the students' charge. He said, "We are certainly not
after the university nor are we trying to hound all those who were members
of SIMI. Our intention was only to pin down those students who were
involved in anti-national activity," while hastening to add, "and I am
convinced that their number is not high."
