Author: Pradeep Thakur & Vishwa Mohan
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 17, 2008
With the Ahmedabad blasts case, sleuths have
also successfully cracked the IM code. Indian Mujahideen (IM) is the hardline
faction of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) that broke away in 2005
to protest against the moderate faction's diffidence about declaring a full-scale
war on India.
Hardliners, led by its general secretary Safdar
Nagori, wanted jihad against India on the same lines that al-Qaida was fighting
in Iraq and Afghanistan, say investigators. Gujarat DGP P C Pande said, "IM
is nothing but SIMI activists who were behind the serial blasts in Ahmedabad."
He said the hardliners first removed 'I' from SIMI, before opting for only
'IM' as their visiting card.
While the choice of Mujahideen-holy warrior-was
in keeping with the group's avowed objective to wage holy war against non-believers,
the prefix 'Indian' served the purpose of helping the group's mentor, Pakistan's
ISI, claim that it had no role in terror acts in India. The email sent on
IM's behalf warning of the terror attack in Ahmedabad minutes before the blasts
went great lengths to emphasize that the group had no links with ISI-supported
gangs like the LeT and Jaish.
"The Ahmedabad blasts were planned out
in the city at the home of one of SIMI activists," said Ashish Bhatia,
head of the probe team and joint commissioner of police.
The drift away from the 'moderates' dates
to the 90s and was facilitated by the community's anger against Babri demolition.
But the complete identification with the objective of global jihad and inflicting
"a thousand cuts" took place in the later part of the decade. The
rift was complete by 2005.
Fresh evidence of the involvement of SIMI
activists, a faction of whom now banded under IM, comes within days of the
refusal of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal to extend the ban
on the outfit inspired by the Deobandi school of Islamic thought and which
was formed in the flush of the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in
1979.
