Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh police arrested at least 10 members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), including its all-India chief Safdar Nagori in Indore, the police said on Thursday.

The police have recovered some weapons from them.

Nagori has been on the run since Sep 27, 2001, and currently leads the banned outfit.

Since the ban on SIMI Sep 27, 2001, it has spread to many districts. Its presence was earlier confined to the districts of Indore, Ujjain, Khandwa and Bhopal. Its state headquarters were in Ujjain before the ban.

SIMI activities were witnessed in four more districts - Burhanpur, Guna, Neemuch and Shajapur - after the ban, according to police records.

With this, SIMI has made its presence felt in almost the whole of the Malwa region of the state. Cases against it were registered in Sivni, Jabalpur and Sheopur districts.

Before the ban, 33 cases were registered against SIMI activists in various districts for spreading religious discord. After the 2001 ban, 49 cases were registered against the organisation.

SIMI national general secretary Safdar Nagori had his base in the temple town of Ujjain, a police official said.

Safdar, an Ujjain resident in his 40s, is the son of a retired assistant sub-inspector of police, Zarhul Hasan Nagori.

Source : IANS