Police say men shot dead in encounter were SIMI, scared MP family won’t accept body

Suspected SIMI activists killed three policemen, injured several before being shot dead.

The two armed assailants killed in an encounter in Nalgonda, Telangana, on Saturday have been identified as part of the gang of SIMI activists who had escaped from a jail in Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh in October 2013.

Fingerprints and other facial identification markers provided by the Madhya Pradesh Police have helped identify the two as Mohammed Aizazuddin and Mohammed Aslam, Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma said.

Police are now questioning the maulana of Hazrath Khaja Naseeruddin Baba dargah in Aravapalli in the district, where the SIMI members are alleged to have taken shelter for more than 30 hours after shooting down two policemen on the night of April 2.

It was a visitor to the dargah who first tipped off police about two “suspicious-looking persons” there, and police want to question the maulana on why he hadn’t notified them.

A Madhya Pradesh ATS team along with the Nalgonda police also searched the dargah premises on Sunday.

Besides, the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Police, along with anti-terror officials of central agencies and other states, have launched a massive search operation for the three remaining members of the SIMI gang who are still absconding.

Family members of Aslam told police in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, that they did not want to collect his body, amid fears that his last rites could lead to tension in the communally sensitive town.

The mother of the 24-year-old wanted to get back his body but the family decided against it and told the local police to convey the same to their Telangana counterparts.

“The Muslim community does not want Aslam’s body to be brought to Khandwa because it could vitiate the atmosphere,” Khandwa-based lawyer Javed Chouhan, who has represented some of the SIMI activists in the past, told The Indian Express.

Police presence has been stepped up in Ganesh Talai, where families of four of the five SIMI activists stayed at the time they fled from Khandwa jail.

Aizazuddin’s family, however, will collect his body.

Four members of the family, who now live in Bhopal’s Janatanagar locality, left for Telangana on Sunday, SP (North) Arvind Saxena told The Indian Express. Aizazuddin’s family hails from Narsinghpur in the state, but has shifted to Bhopal.

The Madhya Pradesh Police said they would wait for analysis of fingerprints and a DNA test before officially confirming the deaths of Aslam and Aizazuddin. “Though we are more or less certain of their identity, we will wait for these reports, and it could take some time,” a top ATS officer said.

Police believe the alleged accomplices of Aslam and Aizazuddin still on the run — Shaikh Mehboob alias Guddu alias Malik, Amjad alias Dawood, and Zakir Hussain alias Sadiq — are hiding either in Telangana or Andhra, based on train tickets found on the slain men apart from other clues.

While teams of the Telangana State Special Police, Greyhounds and Octopus (Organisation for Counter-Terrorist Operations), along with the Madhya Pradesh ATS and other agencies, are scouring Nalgonda and nearby districts, the Andhra Police has launched a search operation in Chittoor, Nellore and YSR Kadapa districts. Uttar Pradesh has also sent a team.

One of the areas being looked at is Tada town in Nellore district, that has a large number of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Tamil Nadu Police had raided this area after the May 1, 2014, blast on the Bangalore-Guwahati Express at Chennai Railway Station, which is one of the cases in which the five SIMI men were named.

Aizazuddin and Aslam appeared to know the terrain of Nalgonda district, as they used rarely used dirt tracks and village roads in a bid to escape the cops after shooting down the two policemen on April 2. They finally led the police into virtually a trap, in an area of dense vegetation near a hillock, killing one constable and injuring a sub-inspector before they were shot dead.

Teams involved in the search operations have been told to wear bullet-proof vests and travel with armed police or special police.

As per the Telangana Police, Aizazuddin and Aslam were involved in the following cases:

Dec 2013: Robbery of Rs 1.25 lakh from Jharsuguda Grameena Bank, Orissa

Feb 2014: Robbery of Rs 46 lakh from an SBI branch in Karimnagar district, Andhra

May 2014: Blast on Bangalore-Guwahati Express at Chennai railway station

July 2014: Blast in front of a police station near Dagadusheth Halwai Ganapati Temple, Pune

Sept 2014: Recovery of an unexploded bomb on a train at Rewari, Haryana

Oct 2014: Blast at Bijnor, UP

Feb 2015: Looting of 3.2 kg gold and Rs 22.5 lakh cash from Mini Muthoot Finance branch in Medak district, Telangana

Feb 2015: Dacoity on Dhanbad-Alleppey Express near Kasinga railway station, Orissa

Feb 2015: Rs 50 lakh robbery at HDFC, Lucknow

Besides, along with their alleged accomplices, Aizazuddin and Aslam were wanted in a dozen other offences before their arrest and eventual incarceration in Khandwa jail.

Source:: Indian Express