MUMBAI: The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is suspected to be behind the serial blasts in Ahmedabad, Surat and Bangalore. Officials of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) that are probing the blasts in Ahmedabad and Surat, suspect that the conspiracy of the recent blasts was hatched and executed by SIMI activists during a meeting in Gujarat in January.

Though the investigators have not yet come to the conclusion about the accused being behind the blasts, the needle of suspicion points toward the SIMI activists because of the statements of SIMI chief Safdar Nagori and his deputies Shibli Abdul, and two others. The ATS officials said that Nagori, along with his deputies and 15 SIMI activists, including two from Gujarat, had attended a two-day training camp in a forest near Halol, near Baroda on Jan. 13 and 14 this year.

The arrested SIMI activists, now in the custody of the Mumbai police in their statement said that they were trained in the use of firearms and explosives, communications networking, trekking and swimming, all like a military commando. Shibli was arrested in March from Madhya Pradesh. Sajid Mansuri from Baroda and Asif Kagzi from Ahmedabad are said to have gone into hiding after the blasts.

During the interrogation of SIMI activist Riyazuddin Nasir, who was arrested from Bangalore in February this year, ATS officials were told that SIMI had organized a three-day orientation camp in Kerala in December last year, which was held in the forest at Wagamon near Aluva in Idukki district.

Meanwhile, claiming that around 400 Muslim youths were rounded up for questioning in connection with the serial bombings in Ahmedabad last week, human rights activists have criticized the singling out of members of a community without first probing their role in the terrorist attack.

“Around 400 innocent Muslim youths have been picked up by the police for interrogation with regard to the recent serial blasts in Ahmedabad. We condemn the terrorist act, but demonizing of a particular community without investigations does not augur well,” Dinesh Oza, a human rights activist working in Gujarat, told reporters in New Delhi.

— With input from agencies