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Sunday, September 30, 2001

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Hunt is on for Nagori, aide

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 29. Intensive search operations have been launched to nab the national general secretary of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Safdar Nagori, and an active member of the organisation, Shahbaz, who are believed to have gone underground. Police are also on the look-out for some SIMI members whose names not in the list of members.

Efforts were being made to nab those whose names were never revealed in public. Such members belong to the third segment of the organisation. ``One of the segments is known as Ansar -- which include those who help by donations and by helping it in other ways. The other segment is known as Akhwat and Ikhwan (brother and sister), who are the office-bearers and members of the organisation.''

There is the third segment of unknown faces who are considered deeply involved in creating ``communal discord'' through various means. ``They are our main target''. Police have prepared a list of around 50 such people and a search has been launched to nab them.

Police are also looking for activists who had gone to Pakistan in January this year through illegal means to get training there. It is alleged that during their stay in Pakistan they came in contact with some activists of Osama bin Laden's Al-Queda.

Police said that thay had gathered enough evidence to prove that SIMI was involved in creating communal discord and that it had links with terrorist outfits. During a raid at the SIMI headquarters, police have seized documents revealing the organisation's sympathy towards terrorist outfits.

It is also alleged that the organisation had organised a clandestine meeting in August this year in which they had invited people from various fundamentalist organisations. The main reason behind such a camp was the expansion of SIMI by including more experienced people from different fields who could be of ``use''. Police is also desperately looking for Nagori, who had publicly protested against the ban on SIMI and criticised the U.S. a day before the SIMI's Zakir Nagar headquarters was sealed. However, sources said, intelligence inputs suggested that Nigori and his associate, Shahbaz, were still hiding in Delhi. Raids were continuing till late in the evening on Saturday.

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