8 escaped SIMI terrorists killed in Bhopal: 10 things to know about Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)

NEW DELHI: Eight activists of the banned SIMI escaped early today from the Bhopal Central Jail by killing a security guard and scaling the prison wall with the help of bed sheets. The eight SIMI activists, who escaped from the Central jail here, have been killed in police encounter at Malikheda near Bhopal. The activists, after killing the guard, scaled the prison walls with the help of bed sheets. The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is an organisation proscribed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Here are 10 things to know about the banned organisation.

• The outfit was formed at Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh) in April, 1977. Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Professor media studies at the Western Illinois University Macomb, United States, was its founding President.

• SIMI originally emerged as a student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. It later separated from JIH and continued as a hard line organisation.

• The outfit advocates the ‘liberation of India’ by converting it to an Islamic land.

• The outfit is currently regarded as having strong bases in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Assam.

• SIMI is known to have adopted an extremist and militant posture on various issues of concern to the Muslim community.

• Students up to the age of 30 years are eligible to be its members and after completing this age-limit they retire from the organization.

• The Indian government describes it as a terrorist organisation, and banned it in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

• SIMI cadres consider Osama bin Laden as a ‘true believer of Islam’. They also regard him as an ‘Islamic Hero’.

• As the organization does not believe in a nation-state, it does not believe in the Indian Constitution.

• Among its various objectives, the SIMI aims to counter what it believes is the increasing moral degeneration, sexual anarchy in the Indian society as also the ‘insensitiveness’ of a ‘decadent’ west.

(With inputs from South Asia Terrorism Portal)