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Hyderabad, Telangana, India
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Monday, April 27, 2015

SIMI Ultras Played Cops to Stay Off Grid

It appears the two terrorists of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Aslam and Aizazuddin, had posed as tourists and even cops at times while trying to stay off the grid — before they were shot dead on Saturday — in Nalgonda district. Sources associated with the investigation told Express the duo had identified themselves as Raju and Rahul and stayed in a dargah at Aravapalli and other places soon after they killed a constable and a home guard at the Suryapet bus-station early Thursday. “When some locals doubted their antecedents as they moved with a carbine, which they had snatched away from policemen at Suryapet, they claimed to be part of a special police party,” sources said. These new facts came to light after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) joined the probe and questioned locals at Aravapalli and adjoining villages. An NIA team on Sunday visited the region to gather details as the agency suspects some other SIMI activists could still be hiding in the district. The team also quizzed the Moulana of the Aravapalli dargah. The Telangana government, which had initially claimed the duo could be UP gangsters, meanwhile, ‘confirmed’ they were indeed SIMI activists and part of a gang of five who had escaped from Khandwa Jail in Madhya Pradesh on Oct 1, 2013. The five — Aizazuddin, Aslam, Amjad Khan, Zakir Hussain Sadiq and Mehboob Guddu — facing trial for the murder of a cop had scaled the 14ft high prison wall and escaped. The Telangana government’s ‘confirmation’ came after a police team from MP identified the bodies as that of Aslam and Aizazuddin.

Fact-sheet:  Of the two slain terrorists, Aizazuddin was from Kareli, Narsinghpur district in Madhya Pradesh. He came into contact with SIMI in Jabalpur. He did not figure in any police records before his arrest in June 2011. Aslam had worked as a mason till his arrest in June 2011 along with eight other SIMI men.  The Union Home Ministry had termed the escape of the SIMI activists from Khandwa jail as a major security challenge. It suspects they had carried out bomb blasts in different parts of the country.

Mouli Mareedu
moulimareedu@gmail.com

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