In focus

Shameemul Islam, the editor of the newsletter of the Students Islamic Movement of India, convicted in a case of sedition and objectionable publication with four others, being brought to the District Sessions Court complex in Coimbatore. A file picture. - S. SIVA SARAVANAN

CHENNAI came into focus as a centre of Islamic militancy when the police from Bangalore took into custody Basheer Khan Mysoori (40) on January 3 on the suspicion that he was an operative of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The police had found a visiting card of Mysoori among the belongings of Abdul Rehman, who was arrested from Nalagonda in Andhra Pradesh. Mysoori was arrested as he was about to board a train to go back to Bangalore.

Mysoori, a "moulvi", had finished translating the Koran into Kannada and had travelled to Chennai to give orders for printing it when he was taken into custody. The Chennai Police and the Bangalore Police jointly interrogated him.

According to officers who took part in the interrogation, Abdul Rehman and Mysoori were introduced to each other by a common friend at the Tamil Sangam, Bangalore. The Chennai Police maintain that Mysoori reached Chennai before the killing of Prof. Puri took place and that they did not find anything against him. But the Bangalore Police seem to be convinced that he is a LeT operative.

On December 17, Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, attracted nationwide attention after an e-mail was sent from a browsing centre there, threatening to blow up the Parliament building and the United States Consulates in India. The e-mail was purportedly from a supporter of Osama bin Laden.

The threat had Members of Parliament scurrying out of the building. Police officers from New Delhi, including Intelligence Bureau officers, rushed to Palayamkottai. Although the New Delhi Police and their Tamil Nadu counterparts interrogated several persons in connection with the e-mail, there was no breakthrough in the case.

In November 2002, the Chennai City Police busted the network of a "budding" terrorist organisation called the Muslim Defence Force (MDF), which had planned to create "serious trouble" by setting off bombs in Tamil Nadu on December 6, the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. The MDF was originally founded in Saudi Arabia and had connections with LeT. A senior officer said: "The MDF was the only module in Tami Nadu with LeT connections and the Chennai City Police did a good job in breaking it."

Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and Chennai have been crucibles of Hindu and Islamic fundamentalist activity since the 1980s. The deadliest bloodletting came in February 1998, when Al-Umma, the All India Jehad Committee, the Islamic Defence Force (IDF) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) of Kerala, all terrorist organisations, exploded a series of bombs in Coimbatore, killing 58 people. Earlier, in the violence directed against Muslims at Coimbatore in November 1997, 18 people were killed.

Trial is under way at Coimbatore in the serial bomb blasts case, in which 168 people are accused. Those in jail include S.A. Basha and Mohammed Ansari, top leaders of Al-Umma, Erwadi Kasim of the IDF, and Abdul Nasser Mahdani, chairman of the PDP. The PDP reportedly supplied the explosives for the blasts.

Just when the police were under the impression that Muslim fundamentalism was under control in the State, an organisation called Al-mum Touheem Force (AMF) was uncovered. Its name in Urdu means "the force that takes vows". The AMF was formed near Dindigul in September 2003 to avenge the killing of Imam Ali, a leader of the All-India Jehad Committee, who was Tamil Nadu's most wanted militant. On September 29, 2002, police commandos from Tamil Nadu shot Imam Ali in a house in Bangalore. Imam Ali was a prime accused in the bomb explosion at the RSS building in Chennai in August 1993, in which 11 persons were killed. He was allegedly trained by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and later by the Hizbul Mujahideen.

The birth of the MDF and the AMF has puzzled the police, who are debating whether this indicates a resurgence of terrorist activity in the State and a "re-grouping of like-minded persons" from these organisations and also the Students Islamic Movement of India. Al-Umma, the Jehad Committee and the SIMI are banned in Tamil Nadu.

The uncovering of the MDF in 2002 provided a fund of information to the Chennai Police and the intelligence agencies on the funding and modus operandi of these terrorist groups. While some police officials say there are several LeT modules in Tamil Nadu, others say that the MDF was the only LeT cell in the State and that its back has been broken now.

How do these militant organisations recruit members? Organisations such as the MDF, the AMF and the Hizbul Mujahideen recruit resident agents and use the "hub and spokes" method. The resident agents themselves are divided into two sections. Some agents belong to the Dawah group - their job is to propagate Islam and recruit people to the organisation's fold. The other resident agents are jehadis. A police officer said, "the jehadis are the real operators", murdering people, organising the logistics for bomb blasts, procuring explosives and exploding the bombs.

The MDF in Saudi Arabia recruited Thoufeek and Hamid Bakhrio as resident agents for Chennai and Kayalpattinam. These agents stay in a particular locality for several years and gain the confidence of the local people. They set up social service organisations which organise medical camps, blood donations, night schools to promote literacy among Muslim youth and so on. So nobody suspects them. These resident agents have a sharp eye for unemployed, susceptible Muslim youth. Once recruited, these young people undergo systematic indoctrination about the "injustice done to Muslims in India", the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the killing of Muslims in Gujarat after the Godhra arson. The agents also target for conversion Dalit youth who have returned to Tamil Nadu after a stint in the Gulf countries.

A police officer said: "When the LeT sends a resident agent to Coimbatore, he will not know the other agents already planted there. The resident agents will speak only to the `hub', generally in Pakistan. But the spokes, that is, the agents, are in India." The advantage in this method is that even if the police arrest one "spoke", he will not be able to spill the beans on the other agents.

A police officer summed up the situation in the State: "Tamil Nadu is a different place after 1992. Before 1992, there was no rabid fundamentalism. A fertile ground became available after 1992 for the frustrated [Muslim] youth to from a base."