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| India-Pakistan |
| Two SIMI men held in Ahmedabad |
| 2010-07-13 |
| AHMEDABAD - Two activists of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) were arrested here on the eve of Gujarat’s popular annual Hindu religious procession. Following a tip-off, police nabbed Abdul Wali and Shamim Saiyed while they were riding a motorcycle in a congested locality where the ‘Rath yatra’ is scheduled to halt for a while during its 14-km journey through narrow lanes and bylanes of the old city on Tuesday. A revolver, an airgun and 20 live bullets were recovered from the duo who have been working in a cloth shop here for the past seven months. Director-General of Police Shabbir Khandwawala told Khaleej Times that Wali hailing from Patna in Bihar was an accused in the conspiracy to blow up Howrah bridge in Kolkata and had several cases registered against him for anti-social activities. “He is also accused of sending youth from Jalgaon in Maharashtra for training in Pakistan. He had been a top officer-bearer of SIMI previously and was actively involved in its activities,” the police chief said. Saiyed, who originally hails from Azamgadh in Uttar Pradesh, is also wanted for crimes committed in West Bengal. Meanwhile, the entire 65,000-strong police force has been kept on its toes for Tuesday’s procession here as well as 85 other similar religious marches to be held in other cities of Gujarat. About 18,000 policemen will be on duty in the city where the ‘yatra’ passes through a number of communally-sensitive areas which have witnessed Hindu-Muslim clashes in the past. The state government has also asked for 20 companies of central paramilitary forces and five companies of State Reserved Police each from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. |
| Posted by:Steve White |