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TN intelligence keeps fingers crossed on PM's visit

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

The Tamil Nadu police is taking all precautions for the Tiruchi visit of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani to attend the state Bharatiya Janata Party conference on March 21, 22.

The state government has given a free hand to the police, whose raids in recent days have helped unearth weapons from Islamic fundamentalists, lodged in high-security prisons in the Coimbatore blasts case.

"While the existence of an arms network inside the central prisons in Coimbatore and Madras is reprehensible, we are relieved at busting it," says a source in the state intelligence, demanding stern government action against the officials who permitted it, top down.

For its part, the state government has stopped with shifting some Coimbatore blasts accused to other prisons in the state and transferring 'erring' officials. "But that will not do," says the intelligence source.

For its part, the intelligence sources are keeping their fingers crossed on the VVIP visit to Tiruchi. They refer to a 'hidden agenda' of some Islamic fundamentalist groups in the state, which is the exact opposite of their perceived publicised agenda.

"They are seen as sympathisers of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in the state, and one of their prisoners even publicly threatened Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rangarajan Kumaramangalam in open court for the latter speaking about the possible dismissal of the M Karunanidhi government. But their real intention seems to be facilitating such a course, by letting the blame for their future 'actions' fall on the DMK."

In this context, the state police sources view with concern the Centre revoking the National Security Act detention of People's Party chief Abdul Nasser Madani of Kerala, arrested in connection with the Coimbatore blasts case.

The source says, "There was no other way after the Centre delayed giving him a copy of his detention order in a language known to him within a month of his detention last April. And the Centre cannot blame the state government for the lapse."

Madani is alleged to be a hub of fundamentalist activities in south India, and the Kerala police was hesitant to lay its hands on him. "The Coimbatore blasts case prepared the public mood, and they were only happy that the Tamil Nadu police could arrest him."

Though his NSA detention, at the Salem prison in Tamil Nadu, has been revoked, he has been charged in several other cases, where his continued detention may be required.

According to these sources, some of these fundamentalist groups in Tamil Nadu operate on a 'need-to-know' basis, adopted successfully by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas in Sri Lanka.

"That way, even the arrest or interrogation of one or many fundamentalist cadres will not really expose the other groups, their plans or methods. Each group is independent of the other, and once let loose, operates on its own. There is no way stopping them if they have specific plans or targets."

As these sources point out, some fundamentalist groups, as those allegedly involved in the murder of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Tiruchi chief Dr S Sridharan last month, use only traditional weapons like sickle and stick, the possession of which is not an offence like the possession of arms.

The intelligence sources put Kumaramangalam and another BJP MP, C P Radhakrishnan of Coimbatore, as the names topping the 'hit-list' of various Islamic fundamentalists in the state.

"There are also other names, and there is no way to confirm or deny the inclusion of any other at higher levels from outside the state." But they too concede that the recovery of weapons from the prison cells of the Coimbatore blasts accused has proved the "continued porous nature of the state, as far as terrorist operations go".

Though the state intelligence claims the BJP organisers had changed Vajpayee's Tiruchi meeting venue at their behest, central intelligence agencies claim credit for it, all the same.

The visiting security team from the Special Protection Group, however, is said to be behind the change in venue, it is learnt. According to these central intelligence sources, as much as the Inter-Services Intelligence, if not more, it is the local social moorings which are behind 'backward Muslim youth' taking to fundamentalism, and taking to arms under indoctrination.

This source adds, "In the long term, you can think of social education and upliftment. But in the short and the medium-term, only direct action will help. The police should be given a free hand, and upright officials chosen, with no interference from either the government or civil rights groups and the like. We are talking about hardcore, motivated youth, who cannot be broken to confessing their crimes and schemes over a cup of tea and biscuit."

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