Author: Bharti Jain
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: August 18, 2008
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/PoliticsNation/Kerala_goes_soft_on_Simi_country_pays/articleshow/3374387.cms
The kerala link to the Ahmedabad blasts confirms
that Gujarat has only paid for the failure, or worse, reluctance of the LDF
government to act against fundamentalist elements thriving in the state.
At least two training camps were reported
from the forests of Kerala, cocking a snook at the ban enforced against Simi
under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004. The first camp for physical
and mental conditioning of Simi cadres was held in 2006 in Binanipuram near
Aluva in Ernakulam district, followed by another training workshop in December
2007 at Vagamon in Idukki district. After each of these camps, police cases
were filed.
Following the Binanipuram training camp, the
Kerala police even managed to round up 18 Simi activists on August 15, 2006.
Of these, five were named in the FIR. They were Ansar Moulavi, Shaduli, Nizamuddin,
Abdul Rafeeq and Shamas. The others were let off after questioning.
The investigations never went beyond these
five arrests. Sometime later, even these five were released on bail after
the police failed to bring charges against them for indulging in terrorist
activity. Two of the released, Shaduli and Ansar Moulavi, also attended the
second Simi camp at Vagamon, Idukki, in December and January 2007. The two
would later be arrested by the Rajasthan police for their alleged role in
the May 13 serial blasts in Jaipur.
Going by the statement of Kerala home minister
Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the state government was under "pressure"
to set the Simi men free. "Terrorists are operating in Kerala. But their
main activities are outside the state. When we took police action against
some of them, there was a hue and cry from human rights activists saying that
minorities were being targeted," he told reporters in Alappuzha on Sunday.
The LDF government's passive attitude and
its failure to bring charges against the organisers of the Binanipuram camp
emboldened Simi to hold another training session for around 40 cadres from
UP, MP, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka and Jharkhand in December-January 2007.
Activists were given commando training covering aspects like jungle warfare
including the medicinal herbs and plants that must be consumed for survival,
rock climbing and scaling and sliding using a rope.
The trainees were also taught how to avoid
giving away too much information during police interrogation.
Shockingly enough, even the 2007 Simi training camp was reported to the Kerala
police. A case was registered at the Mundakkayam police station on June 19,
2008, but no investigation was undertaken. Yet another reason why the Simi
activists, following the intensive training, could easily re-assemble in states
like Gujarat and Rajasthan and put their training to practice. And their lessons
in how to dodge the police seemed to have worked when even the arrests of
the Simi top leadership from Indore and Ujjain failed to yield intelligence
on plans to target Gujarat and Jaipur.
According to Kerala forest minister Benoy
Viswom, though his department had information on meetings of suspicious extremist
elements in the jungles, the Centre had not passed on any information pinpointing
the Simi sessions to the forest department.
The reluctance of the various governments
in Kerala to act against fundamentalist elements in the state is not a new
phenomenon. It be recalled that the Kerala assembly had in 2006 passed a unanimous
resolution demanding the release of Coimbatore blasts accused and PDP leader
Abdul Nasser Madani on "humanitarian and medical" grounds.
The leader, incarcerated in a Tamil Nadu jail
since 1998, is said to have been ailing at the time. Not only this, CPM T
K Hamza even called on the PDP leader in jail in March 2006, after which Madani
announced his support for the LDF in the 2006 assembly elections.
The PDP chief was named as accused number
14 in the 1998 Coimbatore blasts chargesheet and charged with arranging the
explosives and being part of the criminal conspiracy behind the blasts that
killed 58 people. Madani was acquitted by the sessions court in 2007.