The Hindu : Imam Ali was reviving extremism: DIG

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 02, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Imam Ali was reviving extremism: DIG

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE OCT. 1. Imam Ali, the State's most wanted extremist who was killed in an encounter with a special team of the Tamil Nadu police in Bangalore on September 29, had been in the process of reviving extremism after his dramatic escape from custody in Tirumangalam on March 7.

This was disclosed to presspersons here today by the DIG of Police, Coimbatore Range, Ashutosh Shukla, who led the team which had been on the hunt for the fugitive extremist and ultimately killed him.

The formation of the Al-Mujahideen, after the escape, was a renewed effort at raising the spectre of terrorism in the State.

His death not only nipped the organisation in the bud but is also a severe blow to the jailed extremists who had been seeing Imam Ali at large as their sole hope of sustaining the fundamentalist movement.

``The death of Imam Ali (shot dead with four others at a house in the M.S.R. Lay-out in Bangalore) definitely offers a huge relief to the State. He was planning communal disturbances,'' the DIG said.

Mr. Shukla's observation points to the unease that prevailed till Imam Ali was gunned down. The police admit that even the most hardcore extremists of the proscribed Al-Umma are no match to his stature as one of the most dreaded terrorists in the country.

The DIG said Imam Ali had been trained by the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and he was an expert in explosives. He had trained the Al-Umma's chief bomb-maker, Zakir Hussain (now in prison in the serial blasts case).

His remaining at large had spelt ominous. This was proved by the disclosure, after the shoot-out, of a conspiracy to kill the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, and others.

However, Mr. Shukla said that Imam Ali had been operating under severe constraints. Besides health problems, he had faced funds crunch. Barring the money needed for food and shelter, the money needed for running his organisation apparently did not come as easily as he had wanted.

This could have made him ask his "followers'' to commit robbery in Tuticorin and Bangalore where a spurt in such cases had been reported. Even a murder for gain was planned in Bangalore a couple of days before the encounter but was aborted.

Imam Ali was known to have had contacts with the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The ban on it apparently left him with very little support.

Though funds and logistical support had not been adequately available to him, the fact that he and the others who were gunned down coughed up Rs. 30,000 as advance for the house they had occupied only points to the existence of sources for getting funds.

``We have got a lot of telephone numbers and addresses, belonging to both Bangalore and Tamil Nadu. With these, his contacts in both places could be traced to price out information.

The numbers and addresses belonging to Tamil Nadu are being handed over to the Special Investigation Team (probing the blasts cases) and the Karnataka police would do the follow-up on the ones pertaining to Bangalore,'' he said.

Asked who might have helped Imam Ali in Thiruvananthapuram, where the team missed him by a whisker, the DIG only said local contacts.

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