Banned SIMI cadres regrouping under new banner?

Bangalore/New Delhi, Dec 12 (PTI) Cadres of banned
Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) are understood to
have been fast regrouping under the banner of Popular Front of
India (PFI), an outfit which has expanded its tentacles to
north after carrying out initial recruitment in south India.
This, according to an arrested militant Madoor Isubbu --
a person considered as a vital link in the terror groups-Inter
Services Intelligence- underworld-Naxals nexus, was aimed at
keeping the flock of SIMI together after it was banned on
February eight, 2006.
Sources privy to interrogation of Madoor, who was nabbed
in southern city Bangalore by police earlier this week on his
return from a Gulf country, said ISI and other terror modules
in Pakistan were worried over the depleting cadre strength of
SIMI and were working out plans to keep them under one banner.
However, when contacted, Rizwan, PFI's Office Secretary,
told PTI that this was a "wrong information" and the
authorities were deliberately trying to "tarnish" the image of
the organisation. He also distanced his group from the Kerala
incident in the south, when the hands of a professor who had
prepared a question paper allegedly insulting Islam were
chopped off.
SIMI cadres had earlier formed Wahadat-e-Islami which,
however, could not sustain majority of its cadres who moved on
to groups like Indian Mujahideen while some managed to shift
to Pakistan through Bangladesh and some Gulf countries.
Madoor claimed before interrogators that funds were being
pumped in by Pakistan's ISI for SIMI through hawala
transactions from Gulf countries and it is also making
attempts to woo Naxal groups, the sources said.
SIMI has since been banned thrice by the government and
the organisation has lost its case in the Supreme Court
seeking lifting of the ban.
36-year-old Madoor, a native of a village near Ullal in
Dakshina Kannada district in south India, was allegedly
involved in over 17 criminal cases since 2001, including four
murders, six attempt to murder, besides extortion and rioting.
He had been on the wanted list since 2003, when he jumped
bail in two cases of communal rioting in Ullal and fled to
Saudi Arabia, from where he began his operations using local
associates in southern city of Mangalore, the sources said.