Police intensify monitoring of ultra outfits

By G. Anand

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, SEPT. 16. Intense monitoring of religious fundamentalist groups and closer liaison with Central agencies would be the security response of the State police intelligence machinery in the wake of the heightened national awareness against terrorism following the recent terrorist attacks in the U.S.

Highly-placed sources in the police establishment told The Hindu that the testing of a remote-controlled explosive device at a private estate in Manjeri in Malappuram district last month and the well-planned murder of CPI(M) activist Binu in Nadapuram by persons suspected to have strong links with religious fundamentalist organisations have forced the police to take the threat of terrorism very seriously.

Forensic experts had inspected the explosion site at the private estate, which sources said, is owned by persons having strong links with certain foriegn-funded fundamentalist groups.

In the coming days, the State police would act in close liaison with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under which a special anti-terrorist cell has been set up in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the U.S., the sources said.

Following the arrest of 11 persons in connection with the Nadapuram Binu murder case, the police had been working closely on the activities of certain fundamentalist organisations having strongholds in North Kerala.

"Now we have emerging evidence to link these groups with certain other murders in the State. For instance in May, the activists of a fundamentalist group had carried out the murder of one Kaladhanan in Kalamassery. Certain political murders in Thrissur, Walanchery, and Palakkad, few of them staged as hit-and-run accident cases, are in the process of being traced back to these outfits," a senior official said.

The police sources said fundamentalist elements are interfering in an extra-judicial manner in cases where members of minority communities are the aggrieved parties.

These elements act as arbitrators resorting to strong-arm methods to settle scores and mete out justice in disputes and problems involving members of their community.

In North Kerala, the outfits are suspected to be behind the burning of theatres and banning of cable television in certain pockets. The activists of these outfits use muscle power to crack down on social evils such as prostitution, drug and hooch peddling, an official said.

Police sources said that they have identified as many as six fundamentalist organisations in the State which police perceive as a long-term threat to the rule of law.

Officials claimed that they have successfully infiltrated some of these organisations and now have a definite idea about how they recruit cadres, raise funds and conduct their operations.

"Surprisingly, some of the outfits are organised almost on the lines of the police with State headquarters, range and sub- divisional offices. In North Kerala, they regard martial art schools, orphanages and kalaris as talent spotting centres to recruit cadres," the sources said.

A senior official said unemployed youth are trained in making improvised explosive devices (IEDs), handling swords and unarmed combat before they are recruited into highly-secretive hit teams. "One outfit refers to its hit team as Hababil. The existence of well-organised hit teams had come to light when the police were investigating the Nadapuram Binu murder case," a source said.

Police said that the fundamentalist organisations in Kerala drew their financial succour from hawala, tube-money and currency rackets which have their hubs in countries such as Saudi Arabia in the Gulf.

Many in the State police establishment are of the opinion that fundamentalist outfits have infiltrated certain human rights (HR) organisations and use HR activism as a front to push their own narrow political agenda.

At the same time, the police were apprehensive of the emerging bomb culture in the State. The worrying factor is that dynamite, chemical charges, detonators and fuses sold by licensed agents for quarrying purposes are being illegally diverted to criminal gangs and fundamentalist outfits.

The discovery of "pipe bombs" (nitroglycerine charges in iron tubes) in the Kadalundy River in Malappuram district in the mid- 90s had lent credence to the police theory that anti-national forces could be behind the spreading bomb culture in the State. Similar pipe bombs were used in the serial blasts at Coimbatore in 1998.

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