Hyderabad

[islamazism]

AHMEDABAD/LUCKNOW: Three weeks after serial blasts rocked Ahmedabad, killing 57 people, Gujarat police claimed a major breakthrough with the arrest of 10 activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), including nine from Gujarat

The formal announcement of these arrests was made only after the alleged mastermind, Mufti Abdul Bashar Kasmi, was picked up from Sarai Meer locality in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday. A Gujarat police team struggled to convince their reluctant UP counterparts about Bashar's involvement and it took some phone calls between higher-ups in the two states to sort things out.

Bashar was arrested in a joint operation and produced before the special CBI judge (Lucknow) Rekha Dixit who allowed 3 day transit-remand to Gujarat police.

Police officials in Ahmedabad claimed that the group headed by SIMI leader Safdar Nagori had executed similar blasts in Jaipur, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

After Nagori's arrest in Indore in March '08, Mufti Bashar had wrested control of SIMI's terror module.

The breakthrough is bound to boost the sagging morale of Indian agencies in the forefront of the war on terror. It's the first time that police have moved with this kind of speed and thoroughness after a terror attack.

It also marks a new level of coordination between state police forces and with central intelligence agencies, a factor cited as a negative after each terror attack.

"We say this with pleasure and pride that our investigations would lead to the cracking of other serial blasts in the country," said Gujarat DGP, P C Pande, acknowledging the contribution of police forces from Delhi, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Maharashtra in the investigations, apart from central agencies.

Bashar re-grouped the SIMI network after Nagori's arrest and plotted the Ahmedabad blasts with the help of a Mumbai-based techie, an employee of Wipro who is still at large.

"SIMI operatives were working under the guise of Indian Mujahideen. Remove the first and last letters of SIMI, and you have the IM," said Pande.

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Ahmedabad_blasts_brains_SIMI_man_techie/rssarticleshow/3370648.cms