Author: R. Bhagwan Singh
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: October 2, 2002
Slain extremist Imam Ali on Tuesday
got a hero's burial behind a mosque in Madurai as a huge crowd of mourners,
mostly local Muslim youth and relatives from his hometown Melur nearby,
chanted prayers, sobbed and raised slogans.
Black flags were hoisted on some
rooftops in the Muslim-dominated neighbourhood and several youth, wearing
black badges, screamed at the police and the press to keep away from the
final rites, according to eyewitnesses interviewed on the phone.
The most wanted extremist in the
Tamil Nadu police's records, Imam Ali was gunned down along with four accomplices,
including a woman, in a shootout at Bangalore early on Sunday morning.
Trained in the use of explosives in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir in the early
90s, Imam Ali was the prime accused in the 1993 bomb blast at the RSS headquarters
in Chennai in which 10 people were killed.
Intelligence agencies said deputy
prime minister L.K. Advani was among the VIPs on his hitlist. There was
high tension in the Sungampallivasal (pallivasal in Tamil means mosque)
area right from the time they got the news of Imam Ali's death and the
local youth began gathering themselves to organise his burial and protest
by hoisting black flags in acknowledgement of his "martyrdom." It was an
unfamiliar sight for the police as they did not expect such an open display
of support.
