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THE NATION: SIMI
Nursery Of Hate
The
dust settles on Kanpur's week of violence. But the spectre of SIMI's fanatical
youth remains. A report on India's in-house Taliban.
By Sayantan Chakravarty in Kanpur
An unnerving calm
spreads before you as you gaze at the Old City from atop the Raj-era Cawnpore
Kotwali. Thousands of houses have their doors and windows firmly shut.
The silence is broken occasionally by the stomp of police boots and the
wailing sirens of cars. Some 1,700 policemen, including troops from the
Rapid Action Force, are on duty. It is three days since the violent clashes
began on Friday, March 16, between a section of the citizenry and the
law enforcers. The mayhem has already left 13 people dead, including additional
district magistrate, C.P. Pathak.
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| FANATIC FIRE: SIMI-led mobs used countrymade
weapons to attack policemen |
It all began in Beconganj's narrow, congested
alleys when a group of 500 people came out of the Jama Masjid that Friday
afternoon, protesting against the alleged burning of the Quran in Delhi.
They had allegedly been instigated by the Students' Islamic Movement of
India (SIMI). The incident was apparently in reaction to the destruction
of Buddha statues by the Taliban in Afghanistan. A Reuters despatch, along
with a photo of "Hindu activists", had been used for a poster.
Thousands of copies were distributed across the older parts of Kanpur,
home to an estimated 10 lakh Muslims, a fourth of the city's population.
Perhaps it was the passion of prayer. Right
after the namaz, the 500-strong crowd began shouting anti-BJP slogans.
It burnt effigies of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Shiv Sena
chief Bal Thackeray. Smaller groups began collecting in nearby areas-Chamanganj,
Anwarganj, Mulganj, Bajeria, Colonelganj. Similar slogans were heard.
At this point the police decided to step in, only to be greeted by a volley
of soda bottles and then bullets. By March 19, 120 people had been arrested,
causing IG (Kanpur) Karamvir Singh to remark, "Kanpur wasn't a communal
city not so long ago. Now there is a sizeable section of disgruntled youth
that is driving such activities."
The "disgruntled youth" of Kanpur
are not unorganised members of a typically lumpen underclass. Intelligence
agencies and policemen across Uttar Pradesh, and in other parts of the
country, are increasingly feeling the heat from one radical group-SIMI.
If youth and fanaticism make a potent cocktail, SIMI mixes them lethally.
In Kanpur certainly, the police believes SIMI,
was instrumental in the attacks. For the past year and longer, SIMI's
10,000 members in the city have been stoking emotions in select areas.
This past month, the volcano erupted. Now the state Government is reportedly
on the verge of seeking a ban on SIMI. Says A.K. Mitra, additional DG,
Uttar Pradesh Police and an old Kanpur hand: "SIMI cannot outrightly
be termed anti-national. But definitely its level of hostility is immense."
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