145;This isn146;t SIMI which I founded, visualised146;

Our values have been eroded, says Md Ahmadullah Siddiqui, from his Illinois university campus where he teaches journalism, to Jayanth Jacob

As a PhD student at the Aligarh Muslim University, Mohammed Ahmadullah Siddiqui witnessed one of the most volatile periods in the country8217;s socio-political history. The Emergency was over and Indira Gandhi lost power. The Janata Party government was taking shape.

Then Siddiqui and his friends came together, under the patronage of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, to leave their own stamp on history. On April 25, 1977, the Students Islamic Movement of India SIMI was formed in Aligarh.

After almost three decades, Dr Siddiqui has moved on in life. He left SIMI in 1980 on turning 308212;the upper age limit for a member8212;and moved to the USE for higher studies. For the past 19 years, he has been teaching journalism at Western Illinois University, Macomb, USA.

The organisation he formed has also moved on. Accused of sponsoring terror and banned for the past five years, it has marched far ahead of its original raison d8217;etre of 8220;studying Islam8221;.

8220;This is not the SIMI of which I was the founder president. This is not the organisation we had visualised in 1977,8217;8217; Dr Siddiqui told The Sunday Express over phone from the USE.

But the organisation has not lost the support of many old timers. 8216;8216;How can one say SIMI is behind terrorist activities without any proof? The police is unable to nab the real culprits. So they find an easy scapegoat in SIMI,8217;8217; says QR Ilyas, spokesman of All India Muslim Personal Law Board AIMPLB. Ilyas was the SIMI president in 1983.

But Dr Siddiqui admits there has been erosion in the 8216;8216;values of the organisation8221;, adding that 8216;8216;terrorism has no place in Islam or in a civilized society8217;8217;. He stresses the need for dialogue to resolve such conflict: 8216;8216;We should listen to the aggrieved parties, understand their problems and try to bring them into the mainstream.8217;8217;

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The professor, however, finds hope in the changing face of the Indian muslim: 8216;8216;Definitely things have changed a lot for the good. The socio-economic conditions of the Muslims are improving. Many positive things happened to the community since I left India8212;especially in terms of education level.

One of the reasons Dr Siddiqui took up journalism despite holding a PhD in Physics, was to change the way the media portrayed Muslims. He is happy things have changed: 8216;8216;The media now gives more importance to such issues. The number of Muslim journalists in the media too have increased.8221;

While he refuses to comment on the charges of anti-national activities against SIMI, he regrets the new face of the organisation. But he won8217;t be more specific. He is 8216;8216;out of the loop for many years8221;.