August 06, 2008	Wednesday	Sha’aban 3, 1429

NEW DELHI, Aug 5: An Indian court on Tuesday lifted a ban on a Muslim group accused of deadly bomb attacks, saying there was no evidence to brand it an unlawful organisation.

Since it was banned in 2001, the Students’ Islamic Movement of India or SIMI has been blamed by Indian police for almost every major bomb attack, including explosions two years ago on commuter trains in Mumbai in which 187 people were killed.

The group is also being investigated over last month’s bombings in the western Gujarat state which killed 45 people.

But a tribunal of the Delhi High Court turned down a government request to extend the ban by another two years, saying there was no evidence to show SIMI was unlawful.

The ban, extended three times since 2001, was challenged by SIMI this year.

“The government had nothing in support of its claim,” Trideep Pais, SIMI’s lawyer, said. “They had nothing to prove SIMI was unlawful or dangerous.”

A Home Ministry official said the court had rejected its appeal to extend the ban on “technical grounds”.

SIMI started in 1977 as an offshoot of Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind, a moderate religious and social organisation of Muslims with a strong network of members and scholars across India.

It stated that the Koran was its constitution, that jihad or a holy struggle to protect Islam was its path and martyrdom its desire.

SIMI attracted little attention until 2001 when the then ruling Hindu nationalist government banned it, blaming it for inciting religious hatred and riots.

Many SIMI activists were detained and others went underground after the ban.

Security officials say some were pushed into the folds of militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and crossed over to Pakistan for training in camps run by militant groups such as Lashkar-i-Taiba.

The Home Ministry official said the government would challenge the lifting of the ban in a higher court. SIMI had been outlawed under a law on the prevention of unlawful activities.

—Reuters