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| India-Pakistan |
| Safdar Nagori: The face behind SIMI's terror trail |
| 2008-04-02 |
| On March 27, 2008, Students Islamic Movement of India's (SIMI) all-India chief Safdar Nagori was arrested by the Special Task Force of Madhya Pradesh Police in Indore. Intelligence agencies say that his arrest is huge because he was planning a series of major terror strikes across India. To understand just how big is the arrest of Safdar Nagori, one needs to have a look at his profile. Nagori, now in his late 30s, comes from a family of big transporters in Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. He joined the SIMI over 10 years ago but fell out in 2001 when several SIMI leaders urged the organisation to renounce terror and return to its more academic and religious roots. Nagori decided that he would not surrender and moved on with jihadi activism. In 2001-2002, he came to Delhi and spent a year, which indicates he had some local support. In 2003, he moved to Mumbai. The fact that he spent the next five years in Murshidabad in West Bengal clearly indicates that he has a big base in West Bengal, where no big Jehadi attack has taken place, except the USIS attack in 2002 Investigators say that Nagori was training a group of 200 people, who would be dedicated foot soldiers for Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban in India and abroad. By 2005, he was also working for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. His work was perhaps a bit mercenary in nature. He provided crucial support to LeT Jaish-e-Mohammad and Taliban for money, the groups whose hardline Islamic ideologies he shares. Investigators say with his presence in at least five Indian states, he must have created large local networks, some of which have been exposed with other recent arrests. |
| Posted by:Fred |