Author: Pioneer News Service
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 15, 2006
Central and State Intelligence have stepped
up their watch on certain fundamentalist organisations in Kerala, following
the serial blasts in Mumbai on Tueaday. The watch is particularly focused
on organisations with links to the Union Government banned Students' Islamic
Movement of India (SIMI), which was initially said to have had a role in the
serial blasts.
The State Home Department had informed the
Government last month that the SIMI was operating under the cover of at least
12 known organisations in Kerala and lately, they had reportedly developed
connections with Lashker-e-Tayyeba. Security measures have already been heightened,
especially in the Malabar area, where explosions and explosives seizures have
been taking place in alarming levels in the recent months.
In an official statement submitted on June
1 before the tribunal examining the legality of the ban on SIMI, the State
Government had said SIMI activists in Kerala had 'lately' built up links with
the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. SIMI activists had joined several prominent political
organisations also, it was reported. Intelligence officials have turned their
attention on CAM Basheer, a native of Ernakulam, former president of the SIMI.
Basheer is suspected to be a key person behind the Mumbai blasts in 2003.
Banking on "secret and confidential"
reports from the State Special Branch Police and various other agencies, the
Government had said that SIMI was operating under the cover of religious study
centres, rural development and research centres and institutions for developing
'personal effectiveness'.
Some of these organisations were dispersing
"extremist religious ideals" among a section of the youth in the
State by acting under the guise of "counselling and guidance centres
working for behavioural improvements". SIMI activists in Kerala are reported
to receiving foreign funds for anti-national activities still and they have
links with some fundamentalist organisations in Kuwait and Pakistan. Kondotty
in Malappuram district has been identified by Intelligence personnel as the
hot-bed of SIMI activity in Kerala. The Government has also named four persons
who are suspected to be prominent among those engineering the 'regrouping
and mobilisation' of SIMI cadres in the State.
Police suspect that in the recent years, the
Malabar coast has emerged as a base for extremist activism in the State. The
mysterious explosions that took place in Kozhikkode in the last two years
bore testimony to this. However, there are allegations that the performance
by official agencies is not satisfactory. The CBI investigation into the explosion
in a fishing boat in Beypore, Kozhikode, on September 17, 2004 has reached
nowhere. Investigating officials could not also solve the case relating to
the bomb explosion in the KSRTC bus stand in Kozhikode.
Gelatine sticks, bombs and other explosives
were being seized even from the remote villages in Kozhikode district. Sources
in the Home Department said that they were also keeping watch on the Mangalapuram-based
extremist organisations and their suspected link with the explosions in the
Malabar area.