Indian intelligence agencies uncovered a disturbing operational shift within the country's internal security matrix, revealing that former members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) are re-emerging across multiple states to establish independent Islamic State (IS) modules.
Following the ban on the SIMI in 2001, the group remained silent for a few years before re-emerging in the form of the Indian Mujahideen. The Indian Mujahideen had wreaked havoc in the country before being eliminated by the Indian security agencies.
The pattern being followed by the former members of these groups, especially SIMI, is familiar. Today, many are voluntarily taking up the cause of the Islamic State.
It began with Shafi Armar, an Indian Mujahideen operative who left for Syria and then indulged in active recruitment for the Islamic State in India. Following Armar’s death, his wife Rabiya allegedly runs the operations. She is active in fundraising and recruitment, particularly targeting Indian youths.
An Intelligence Bureau official said that currently many from the SIMI are part of the Islamic State.
“They run their operations individually and do not mix operations with other former members. This has created a major problem for the Indian agencies as none of these modules are structured and inter-linked. This makes it hard to track such persons as there is no proper organisational structure,” the official added.
In recent years, the agencies have found several such operatives, who were formerly part of the SIMI, but are working on behalf of the Islamic State. Such modules have been found in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Another official said that all these modules are run by former SIMI operatives.
“They had remained low-profile for several years but have now become active. They have assumed the role of self-styled emirs and are openly propagating the idea of establishing a Caliphate and turning India into an Islamic State,” the official said.
The case of Padgha, a rural town in Maharashtra’s Thane district, is a classic example of how a former SIMI operative managed to establish a module after declaring himself an emir of the Islamic State.
Mohammad Saquib Abdul Hamid Nachan is a former member of the SIMI. He has been associated with radical organisations, including SIMI and Jamaat-e-Islami, since the 1980s. Following the ban on SIMI, he deliberately kept a low profile. He resurfaced nearly two decades later and began propagating the ideology of the Islamic State. He allegedly managed to recruit more than 30 youths from several states, including Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
An official said that this has become a dangerous trend whereby a person just crops up, declares himself as an emir, and then starts recruiting and propagating on behalf of the Islamic State.
Another official said the issue has now become a pan-India challenge. These individuals, particularly former members of the SIMI, had kept a low-profile for several years but have now resurfaced and established modules in the name of the Islamic State.
Many such persons across the country were either part of the SIMI, Indian Mujahideen, or Popular Front of India (PFI), which was banned by the Central government in September 2022.
“Such individuals deliberately keep a low profile and avoid coming under the radar of security agencies. However, they continue to operate quietly in the background, carrying out recruitments and propagating the ideology of the Islamic State. It is an operation that runs largely on autopilot and poses a threat to national stability,” the official said.
These modules, which operate in different parts of the country, are not interlinked, and neither do they communicate with each other. Each module operates individually, with the larger goal being the establishment of an Islamic State.
They propose to achieve this goal region-wise, and once the same is done, the plan is to get all these modules to operate on a pan-India scale, the official said.
