Kerala

Terror module in State suspected

KOZHIKODE/KOCHI: The State and Central intelligence wings are piecing together evidence that a terror module providing logistic and manpower support to Kashmiri militants is operating in the State.

Reliable sources told The Hindu on Sunday that the forged election identity card recovered from one of the two terrorists killed in an encounter with an Army patrol in Jammu and Kashmir forests this past week pointed to the existence of a well-knit Islamist outfit having links with terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, in Pakistan. The election identity card bore the name and residential details of an NRI of Parappanangadi in Malappuram. However, it has not been established that the terrorist, who was killed while trying to cross the Line of Control, is a Keralite. The intelligence agencies are collecting details of all those who have obtained passports from the Kozhikode Passport Office since 2003.

The particulars found on the forged identification card contained data identical to the details of a card in the possession of one Sakeer Mohammed, an NRI entrepreneur, except for the photo, age and the display format. The forged document was not a photostat copy but an original print, indicating that the details of the original card holder had been deftly used, sources said. The details could have been leaked through the Collectorate or the taluk office in Malappuram, where the details of voters’ list is stored in digital format, or from an outlet of a mobile-phone service provider from where Mr. Mohammed had taken a mobile connection. Mr. Mohammed had given his election identity card as address proof to get the connection.

Investigators questioned the owner of the outlet at Chettippadi, near Parappangandi, from where Mohammed took the connection. The infiltration of some from fundamentalist outfits into State departments is exposing the loopholes in government security. Investigators believe that computers in government offices may have been hacked and details of voters’ identity copied onto a pen drive or a CD.

Last month, the intelligence wings reported that several batches from a fundamentalist outfit had left for Mangalore from Kozhikode and Malappuram districts. Investigators then thought that these groups might have crossed the State borders to foment communal trouble in Mangalore. But now they suspect that they were part of a jihadist group operating in the State.

Intelligence agencies have more than one reason to trace a five-member jihadist cell, of which four have been eliminated by the Army and the police in two separate encounters, to different parts of Kerala. One is the identity card. But what actually helped the central intelligence agencies (IB) to keep a tab on the activities of the group was the number of calls they made in the first week of October to various mobile-phone numbers in Kerala.

They made calls to a few numbers in Perumbavoor, Aluva and a few other places and spoke in Malayalam after arriving in Jammu and Kashmir, sources said. Efforts are still under way to track down those who received those calls. But obviously, they got their mobile connections on fake identity proofs and the numbers were only used temporarily, they added.

“Kerala and Karnataka are fertile grounds of Islamic terrorism. These two States have emerged of late as suppliers of skilled human resource for terrorist activity,” said a senior intelligence officer.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu