Three SIMI activists taken into custody in Bhopal

BHOPAL: In a fresh crackdown on SIMI in Madhya Pradesh, at least three persons were taken into custody here in connection with the Mumbai bomb blasts, police said.

The three, including Imran Ansari, a close confidant of top functionaries of the banned outfit, were held for interrogation by the crime branch police.

Though police refused to divulge the nature of interrogation, they were ascertaining whether the activists were linked to Mumbai train blasts.

Ansari's suspected involvement in some criminal cases in Surat and Kanpur was also being probed, they said.

Police had tightened the noose around SIMI after the blasts, rounding up nearly a dozen of its suspected activists from Bhopal, Indore, Khandwa, Burhanpur and Ujjain districts.

"No formal arrest was made as most of them were released after interrogation," the sources said, adding more people were expected to be held and efforts were on to trace known office-bearers of the banned outfit, most of whom have gone underground.

Even as operations against SIMI intensified, senior police officials chose to keep mum over the investigations.  Conclusive evidence to link state-based SIMI activists with Mumbai blasts was yet to be found, even though a prankster was arrested two days ago for sending an e-mail to a newspaper office about the attack, they said.

Another person was held here for allegedly sending an e-mail, in the name of Lashkar-e-Qahar to a TV channel, the sources said.