Author: Ananthakrishnan G
Publication: The Times of India
Date: November 2, 2008
Death of 4 Ultras in J&K Blows Lid Off
State Network Recruiting Hundreds for 'Jihad'
Kerala's best kept secret is finally out:
the fertile lands of 'God's own country' have been churning out terrorists
to fight and die for the 'jihad' in J&K.
Successive governments in Kerala have all
along tried to downplay this. But the death of four terrorists in J&K
earlier this month blew the lid off what is believed to be a terror network
extending from Kannur, Kozhikode and Malappuram in Kerala to the Kashmir Valley
and along the LoC to Pakistan. The four slain terrorists have been identified
as Mohammad Fayaz of Kannur, Abdul Rahim of Malappuram, Rimon alias Mohammad
Yasin-who converted from Christianity-from Ernakulam and Fayeez of Kannur.
Another terrorist, Abdul Jabbar, who managed to flee is suspected to be from
Kannur.
The revelations, a direct indictment of the
Kerala police and the vote-bank politics pursued by political parties, stunned
everyone. What followed was a virtual nightmare for the state. The first to
be arrested was Mohammad Jaleel, a painter, after intelligence reports suggested
he had received calls from terrorists while they were caught in an encounter.
He led the police to Faisal, who had taken Mohammad Fayaz to Bangalore in
September on the pretext of giving him a job.
Sources say his interrogation yielded startling
information on the clandestine network in the state. Faisal was one of the
main recruiting agents for the Lashkar-e-Taiba and is believed to have taken
hundreds of men to Bangalore and Hyderabad for arms training. Then, they would
be sent to Kashmir and across the LoC for further training.
The police then discovered that Rimon was
a historysheeter and was part of a gang headed by a local goon, Thammanam
Shaji. Shaji's questioning revealed that he and his aide Feroz were sourcing
men from all religions, mostly criminals, to take up the cause of 'jihad'.
The men would be sent to Abdulla Faizi, an Islamic scholar in Kozhikode, where
they would be converted. Faizi and over a dozen of Shaji's men are now in
police custody.
Investigations into the background of the
slain terrorists put the spotlight on what was perhaps Kerala's first well-planned
terror act. On September 9, 2005, five armed men took the driver and conductor
of a Tamil Nadu Transport corporation bus hostage, drove to an isolated spot
and set it on fire after asking the passengers to get off. They shouted slogans
in favour of People's Democratic Party leader Abdul Nasser Madani, then an
undertrial in the 1998 Coimbatore blasts case. The case was pushed to the
backburner, thanks to a politician-police nexus.
It now transpires that Abdul Rahim was a suspect
in the case. Another accused, Umar Farooqui, is on the run. But PDP leader
Poonthura Siraj denies the party had any links with terrorists. Also under
the scanner is National Democratic Front, an Islamic outfit, formed in the
aftermath of the ban on Islamic Sevak Sangh founded by Madani.
