Sat-Sep 20, 2008
Azamgarh / Press Trust of India
Azamgarh, the small town in eastern Uttar Pradesh, which is in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons and has earned a notoriety as a nursery of terror, is said to be home to a dozen activists of the banned SIMI.
Once known for Hindu-Muslim synergy and high intellect, Azamgarh is has come to be known as terror's breeding ground, because it has provided a very fertile land for the SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) and other such outfits to flourish.
Top intelligence and police officials now say that the arrest of Abu Bashir, a top SIMI activist, from the Saraimir area here, was not merely a coincidence but may the first of many such arrests.
"There are many SIMI operatives in eastern UP but about two dozen of them are quite active. They are very active at certain times but mostly they are dormant. About a dozen of them belong to Azamgarh," the officials said.
"We cannot pick them up without direct evidence of their involvement in the anti national activities," they added.
They feel It is not surprising that the two terrorists, Atif and Sajid, who were killed and Mohammad Saif, who was apprehended in the Delhi encounter on Friday, belonged to Azamgarh district, said a top police official of Uttar Pradesh, who did not not want to be identified.
There are a number of sleeper cells of SIMI which can be activated at any time and they are the real problem, they said.
Prakash Singh, the former DGP of Uttar Pradesh and a resident of the town, rues that Azamgarh, once the land of Hindi and Urdu litterateurs, Rahul Sankrityayan, Ayodhya Singh Upadhyaya 'Hariaudh', Prof Allama Shibli Nomani and Kafi Azami, and their soul-stirring verses and proses, is now better known for Haji Mastan, Abu Salem and Dawood Ibrahim. And the latest addition to the list, is the Ahmedabad blast master mind Abu Bashir.
"It is unfortunate but true that the long list of Abu Salem, the khadi clad musclemen Umakant Yadav, Ramakant Yadav and the likes have motivated an army of willing young converts waiting in the backwaters of Saraimir, Nizamabad, Khairabad, Mubarakpur, Mohammadabad, Atraulia and Bilariaganj to begin their career as arms peddler or drug supplier for Mumbai and Delhi Underworld," he says.
Historian and the Head of the Department of Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth Dr Parmanand Singh says, "The transformation has taken about twenty five years or so of hawala or blood money."
All top criminals, including Dawood Ibrahim, have their close relatives living here and their success stories have a fairy tale quality that holds great appeal to the youth here, he says.
A known socialist Prabhu Narayan Singh says that Azamgarh has become a land of fundamentalism. The youth has been misguided.
"Nationalism in Azamgarh has been replaced by fundamentalism and this has given birth to Abu Salems and Abu Bashirs," he feels.
No one was surprised when Abu Salem Ansari filed his nomination on the Rashtriya Samajwadi Party ticket on December 28, 2006, he says.
The announcement evoked a mass hysteria in Sarai Mir, his birth place, says a local Musafir Dube. A local trader and Haj committee member, Salim Ahmad, is worried that the entire Muslim community is being painted as anti-national.
He emphasises that the local Muslim is against any type of terrorism.
The people of the area had participated in large numbers in the freedom struggle under the leadership of Gandhiji, adds Prof Parmanand Singh.
Praveen Singh, IG of Police, Varanasi Zone, says the list of the neo-cult products is comprehensive. Abu Hashim, the first criminal arrested under Tada, Shahid Badra, the first president of SIMI, and Khalid Mujahid and Tariq Kasmi, the Gorakhpur blast suspects were arrested from Azamgarh.
Local terror outfits are forging links with their international big leaguers, says Praveen Singh.
Babu Kanhaiya Singh, a renowned litterateur from here, traces the spiralling crime to the administrative neglect.
Though known to growing pulses, oil seeds, sugarcane, potato and mango, production has slipped over the years.
Other factors are failing market of traditional zari sari and the Nizamabad black pottery. No new industries are eager to set base here, he says.
To add to the misery, recurrent floods in the three rivers, Tons, Chhoti Saryu and Tamsa, take their own toll.
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