This is the last part of a three part series of articles. You can read the first and second parts here
The then Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s scandalous act of releasing nine jihadis from prison on the birth anniversary of Annadurai and commuting their specified sentences has to be viewed in the backdrop of the fact that 12 most wanted terrorists are prowling free in Tamil Nadu. They include Abubacker Siddique alias Kakka (7 cases), Ayub alias Ashraf Ali (9 cases), Mohammed Ali alias Yunus alias Mansoor (3 cases), Mujibur Rahman alias Muji (5 cases), Rasool Mydeen (2 cases), Jaguar Sadiq alias Tailor Raja alias Valarntha Raja (5 cases), Toufeeque (2 cases), Mushtaq Ahmed (Chennai RSS headquarters blast case), and Ibrahim, Ashraf Ali, Noohi NP alias Mankave Rasheed and Kunju Mohammed alias Gani (all Coimbatore blast case).
According to the sources, Kakka, Ayub and Thoufeeque were trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and are experts in making explosives. Kakka, a hardcore Al Umma activist, has been accused in seven cases under the Explosive Substances Act and is absconding since 1997.
Ayub alias Ashraf Ali, a core member of the Islamic Defence Force, is believed to be the key operative behind the three train blasts in Tamil Nadu in 1997, in which 10 persons were killed and 72 were injured. Ayub and his associates allegedly planted bombs on the Anna flyover in a bid to blast the US consulate in Chennai. He was accused of sending parcel bombs to director Mani Ratnam for showing Islamic terror acts in his film ‘Bombay’.
Mushtaq Ahmed, who joined hands with dreaded terrorist Imam Ali, one of the founders of Al Umma, is accused of planting powerful explosives at the RSS headquarters in Chennai in 1993, killing 11 RSS workers. Though the Tamil Nadu Government announced a reward of Rs 2 lakh each for five of these 12 wanted men, neither the Special Investigation Team, which probed terrorism-related cases in Tamil Nadu, nor the State intelligence unit, has any inputs on their whereabouts.
In February 2009, the fundamentalists took out a huge rally in Calicut, Kerala. Dinamalar reported (February 19, 2009) that the Popular Front of India (PFI) organised a massive “National Political Conference” in Calicut from 13-15 February 2009. It was attended by members from 16 states; the ‘theme’ was “Power for People”!
At the conference, seminars for students and NRIs were conducted separately. A seminar against terrorism was inaugurated by Magsaysay Award winner and human rights (sic) activist Sandip Pandey, and attended by ‘secularists’ like Swami Lakshmi Sankaracharya from Kanpur, advocate Prashant Bhushan and Chennai-based Prof. Arunan. Secularist Kavitha Srivastava, then president of PUCL-Rajasthan, inaugurated a seminar on “Women power in politics”.
National Ulemas organised a seminar on “Religion in granting power”. Sri Goya, editor, Tejas,chaired a meeting of media persons. A seminar on “Reservations” was also held. The conference culminated with a massive rally and public meeting attended by over two lakh people. On 17 February 2007, The New Indian Express, Chennai, reported: “The ‘Q’ branch of the state police is now concerned about the formation of a new Islamic outfit, ‘Popular Front of India’ (PFI), a coordinated effort between three organisations – Karnataka For Dignity (KFD), Karnataka; Manitha Neethi Pasarai (MNP), Tamil Nadu; and National Development Front (NDF), Kerala. Though the organization’s agenda was democracy and social justice, the state police expressed apprehensions, pointing out that, ‘a majority of the leaders of this new front belonged to the now banned SIMI’.
The sources informed the newspaper that the constituent groups of the Popular Front of India were believed to be behind the bomb attack on BJP office in Bangalore on April 16, 2013. It is alleged that the MNP is the new name of the banned Al Umma, just as the Tamil Nadu unit of SIMI renamed itself Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam after the Centre banned SIMI.
Recently, a Hindu flower vendor was beaten by Muslims in Triplicane area of Chennai for drawing the traditional rangoli in front of her house. When she approached the police, they asked her to leave immediately as hundreds of Muslims had besieged the station. This happened in the same area where Muslims issued pamphlets with derogatory remarks against saint Vallalar and forcefully took the accused from the clutches of the police.
Reliable sources suggest a growing nexus between dalit and Islamic bodies. Political murders via henchmen have risen in Tamil Nadu since 2006, and serve to gloss over murders as motivated by personal or professional enmity, land grabs, illicit relationships, etc. This can be seen from the voluntary surrender of the accused in Dr. Arvind Reddy’s murder in Vellore and the attack on RSS pracharak Bhaskar in Dindugal. In both cases, the men who surrendered had no connection with the victims personally, professionally and politically.
Enquiries reveal that in recent years, the State Intelligence Department downgraded its human intelligence gathering, creating a vacuum which has rendered the police department toothless in handling high profile crimes and busting terror modules and associated networks.
Pampering and nurturing terror outfits and secessionist elements like ‘Nam Thamizhar’ which invited Yasin Malik to address gatherings, has resulted in the formation of a formidable network which has become hard to control.
It may be recalled that during the spate of terror killings in the mid-1993s in Tamil Nadu, the presence of Hindu organisations such as Hindu Munnani, RSS, and others, safeguarded the Hindu community through proactive measures. During this period, intelligentsia aligned with the Left-Secular-Dravidian spectrum claimed that the anti-Muslim propaganda of these organizations triggered the killings. This claim can be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.
It is the repealing of anti-terror laws and indifference towards Islamic fundamentalism owing to an eye on minority votes that laid the ground for the resurrection of terror outfits in the State. The politics of leaders percolates deep into the administration and causes failure of all organs of Government in controlling terror. The total breakdown of intelligence and the fear psychosis instilled by terror groups in the minds of police and administration can be seen from the functioning of the departments. Dravidian politics from inception revolves around the fulcrum of anti-Hindu and anti-national forces; unbroken Dravidian rule from 1967 onwards has eroded the self-esteem of Hindus.
If matters are not to get to the point that the Dravidian parties themselves feel threatened by rampaging jihadis, urgent steps must be taken to bring matters somewhat under control. As a first step, a special investigation team must be set up to investigate all murders and attacks on the leaders and workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party and other Hindu organisations. The State Government must ensure proper protection to the witnesses and appoint the best officers to conduct the probe.
Thereafter, a special fast track court should be constituted to try all terror attacks to bring speedy justice to the victims and their families. The best public prosecutors must be engaged to instill confidence in the public.
Terrorism in India is too real and grim to be soft-peddled. Both the Central and State Governments need to reconsider the need for special anti-terror laws, and to seriously implement the ban on terror outfits and secessionist organisations by closing down each new ‘front’ under which they operate. Above all, there must be an end to minority appeasement as it only fosters separatism in the minds of the pampered community.
Concluded
Niticentral.com, 1 August 2013