Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Police probing Colombo visit by MDF ultra

By K.T. Sangameswaran

CHENNAI DEC. 14. The arrest of Muslim Defence Force extremists has led investigators to probe the Colombo visit by one of them. The police suspect that the purpose was to explore the possibility of giving training to the MDF cadres on the island.

Police sources say 11 persons of the MDF have been arrested so far. The police have identified a dozen others and a hunt is on to secure them. As the police received information that the ultras planned to create chaos in the State on December 6, anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, by damaging statues of national leaders and attacking Hindu organisations, vigil has not been slackened. Moreover, some others belonging to the organisation are still at large.

According to a senior police officer, one of the arrested persons, along with a few others, visited Sri Lanka nearly six months ago to attend an international congregation. Though an apparent purpose was religious, the ``hidden agenda'' was to find out whether training to the cadres for ``private defence'' could be imparted on the island. The police say that though they used the soft term, `self-defence', questioning of the arrested revealed that arms training was planned.

What caused concern to the police was the information that Abu Hamsa, hailing from Hyderabad and settled in Saudi Arabia, who was considered the ``kingpin of the organisation in India'', had planned to attend the conference. But he did not turn up.

Now that the city police received information from Andhra Pradesh, soon after a blast in a Saibaba temple there, of the movements of MDF members here, the problem is no longer confined to Tamil Nadu. ``In all possibility, the members could be in other States too'', say the police.

A trader of Mannady here, who has also been nabbed, has been charged with providing financial assistance to the members. The police are yet to get more details of the organisation and its set-up. ``The problem is serious. It is not only national, but also global'', explains the officer.

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