Odisha police heaves sigh of relief after encounter

Of the eight Simi operatives who were on Monday morning killed in an encounter with the Madhya Pradesh police after escaping the Bhopal Central Jail, four were arrested by the Odisha police in association with the Telengana police on February 16 this year in Rourkela. The four Simi operatives — Md Shaleek, Amzad Khan, Zakir Hussain and Mehboob Sheikh — were caught while hiding at Qureshi Mohalla in Rourkela in the guise of small businessmen. They were later taken on remand by Madhya Pradesh police for interrogation in connection with a number of anti-national activities, including train burning, bank loots and killing of police personnel on duty.

During interrogation by the SIT of the Odisha crime branch, the Simi operatives had confessed that they were planning to temporarily settle in Cuttack, the commercial capital of Odisha, to carry out their anti-national activities. From Cuttack, located just 90 km from the Bay of Bengal, they had planned with their top handlers to launch major offensives on a number of important government establishments and defence installations in states like Odisha, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, West Bengal and Karnataka.

With the death of Md Shaleek, Amzad Khan, Zakir Hussain and Mehboob Sheikh, the chances of the Odisha police getting further information on their links and network have ceased, sources in the state police said.

Mehboob’s mother Nazma Biwi, who is currently lodged in Rourkela jail, is now the only source for investigating agencies to unravel the terror modules of SIMI operatives in eastern India.

Meanwhile, the Odisha director general of police (DGP) K B Singh expressed satisfaction over killing of the SIMI operatives.

“The MP police has done a good job by killing the SIMI operatives who escaped the jail after murdering a staff. I congratulate them (the MP police),” said the DGP Mr Singh.

The SIMI operatives’ movement in Odisha was under the scanner of the National Investigation Agency, Telengana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh police ever since they moved from places to places with Meheboob Shaikh alias Guddu, a terrorist who was in 2014 seriously injured while making bombs in Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh.

After Mehebood was injured, they purchased a used Tata Indica car with Rs 2.5 lakh and came to Sundergarh in Odisha from where they went to Nangamahal in Balasore district (also in Odisha) and again returned to Sundergarh.

Sources close to the interrogators said that the SIMI operatives had looted nearly Rs 2.5 lakh and gold ornaments from various banks between 2013 and 2015. After meeting their minimum requirements, they used to give the surplus money to Hyder Ali, the SIMI leader of Ranchi Module and Abu Faisal aka Doctor, chief of Khandwa Mudule who were allegedly key conspirators behind the attack on Bodhagya temples and serial explosions in Patna in Bihar.