Arrested SIMI group wanted to abduct doctor in Odisha: Police

SIMI OPERATIVES SAID THEY HAD TO DROP THE ABDUCTION PLAN AS THEY FOUND OUT THE ATS SLEUTHS WERE HOT ON THEIR PURSUIT

BHOPAL: Interrogation of four arrested suspected Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) operatives has reveled that the group planned to abduct a doctor in Odisha’s Jharsuguda for ransom, police and intelligence officials said on Sunday.

The four, arrested in a joint operation by the Odisha and Telangana police from Rourkela on February 17, have confessed during interrogation that they planned to abduct a doctor from Jharsuguda but the plan was dropped after they found out the sleuths of the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) of Madhya Pradesh police, hot on their pursuit, had reached Jharsuguda, they said.

After escaping from Tantya Bheel jail in MP’s Khandwa district, the SIMI operatives moved to Sambalpur and Jharsuguda in Odisha, where they spent some time and hatched plans to rob a bank. However, they were unaware that the ATS was quietly trailing them, said an official of Madhya Pradesh AT S , who was present during interrogation.

The SIMI men, including Mehboob alias Guddu, Amjad, Asalm, Aijazuddin and Zakir planned to abduct the doctor for ransom, he said.

A constable of the MP ATS, spotted the SIMI operatives at the Jharsuguda market, forcing them to shift to Rayagada district, where they stayed in dense forests for several days before Abu Faisal, head of the Khandwa module of SIMI and main accused of the 2008 Ahmadabad serial blasts, arrived with money.

Both the National Investigation Agency and the MP ATS have requested the court for the transit remand of the four SIMI operatives and Najma.