PATNA: The Sashastra Seema Bal has written to the Bihar police, suspecting state minority welfare minister Shahid Ali Khan has links with people working for terror outfit Indian Mujahideen and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence ( ISI ).

However, Bihar ADG (HQ) Ravindra Kumar late in the evening quoted reports received from the SPs of Sitamarhi and East Champaran to say neither the minister nor the two people named in the SSB input had any links with the ISI. The two were not associated with the minister, Kumar said and added the SSB had sent a note to the state STF last month.

According to the note, the SSB pounced on Jamil Akhtar and Manzoor Sai while they were suspiciously moving in an area along the border falling under Sitamarhi and East Champaran districts respectively. It was found during interrogation that Jamil ran a bicycle shop in Mathura Market in Bairgania in Sitamarhi district. He is suspected to be associated with terror outfit IM and has also links with criminals, the SSB note said.

As for Manzoor Sai, the SSB note said he was a mason associated with a madrassa at Dhaka in East Champaran district. Both of them are also suspected to be agents of ISI and a Pakistan-based group called 'Jamia'. According to the SSB note, the duo has links with Shahid Ali. The two suspects visited Pakistan in January 2013 and stayed there for 20 days, said the letter from the SSB which also informed the East Champaran and Sitamarhi district SPs about them.

The minister, however, rubbished the reports and said all top investigating agencies of the country should launch a joint probe into the matter and make the probe report public within a month. "I don't need to give any clarification or explanation. It is a matter of investigation. I have taken oath 'under the tricolour'. I am a patriot. But the allegations are of serious nature. If the charges are true, action must be taken against me and if they are false, action must be taken against those who have levelled the charges against me," he told TOI.

Shahid Ali regretted it had become a fashion to malign the members of the minority community. "I am a man of clean image. It is for those who have levelled the charges against me to prove them," he said.

