Just what is SIMI?

Just what is SIMI?

* July 6: The Supreme Court rejects a plea by the Students Islamic Movement of India to lift the ban that the Government of India imposed on the organisation in 2001.
* July 11: Seven bomb blasts rip through seven local trains on the Western Railway network in Mumbai, killing nearly 200 people and injuring at least 714 people.

The Student Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, is a fundamentalist student organisation that was formed at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, in 1977. Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, now a professor of journalism and public relations at Western Illinois University, Macomb, USA, was its founding president.

SIMI activists say they want to convert India to an Islamic land. SIMI was outlawed in 2001 under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Thought the Act has been scrapped by the United Progressive Alliance government, the ban on SIMI holds.