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| HOME | NEWS | ELECTIONS '98 | SPECIAL REPORT | |||||
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February 16, 1998
NEWS
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'Pakistan has found willing allies in south India'George Iype in New Delhi Extremist Hindu and Muslim organisations sprung up in Tamil Nadu after the Bharatiya Janata Party attempted to play the Hindutva card in the state, according to Intelligence Bureau reports filed at the home ministry. Sources said the IB had warned the central government as well as the governments of Kerala and Tamil Nadu in January that militant organisations would strike in both states in the run-up to the election. "The serial blasts in Coimbatore on Saturday and Sunday could have been avoided if the state government had banned the fundamentalist groups in Tamil Nadu,'' a senior IB official told Rediff On The NeT on Monday evening. The IB also warned BJP leaders Lal Kishinchand Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee that militant outfits were planning to target them during the election campaign. Home ministry officials say the BJP's thrust on Hindutva as a political weapon in Tamil Nadu is the main reason for cities like Coimbatore becoming hotbeds of fundamentalism. 'The BJP has been trying to play up its Hindutva agenda in Tamil Nadu while is projecting a moderate face elsewhere in the country,' an IB note to the home minister said after the communal riots in Coimbatore in December. In the run-up to the general election, Hindu groups in Tamil Nadu have been helping the BJP get a toehold not only in Tamil Nadu but in the other south Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. IB reports said the sudden Hindu upsurge in Tamil Nadu had given rise to Islamic fundamentalist outfits like the Jihad Committee, Al- Umma, the Islamic United Front and the Islamic Defence Force in the state. All these Muslim organisations are said to be funded by rich Muslims in Tamil Nadu and Kerala as well as Gulf-based Indian Muslim businessmen. Home ministry officials believe that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency could have helped some fundamentalist Muslim organisations to plan the serial blasts in Coimbatore. "The ISI has now been virtually checkmated in the border states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan has now found willing allies in southern India,'' a senior home ministry official said. The Intelligence Bureau has definite information that the ISI established links with Muslim fundamentalist groups in Tamil Nadu to cause large-scale trouble during the election campaign. Intelligence officials says the ISI helped plan the blasts aboard three Madras trains on December 6, 1997 --the day marking the 5th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. According to the IB, Coimbatore, its suburbs like Kottaimedu and Melvalavu, and Madurai have become a hotbed of fundamentalist militancy as most of the Hindu and Muslim groups are based there. Reports with the home ministry say the M Karunanidhi government avoided action against organisations like Al Umma and the Jihad Committee. For instance, despite several reports of the Al-Umma's involvement in communal riots, its founder Basha Bhai was not arrested by the DMK government until Saturday. Basha Bhai, a real estate agent and timber merchant, was arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act by the Jayalalitha government. If Al Umma and the Jihad Committee secured immunity of sorts from the DMK government, Hindu Munnani activists are said to have had police patronage. In December, policemen were accused of targetting Muslims after Al-Umma activists allegedly stabbed a traffic constable in Coimbatore.
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