TN’s most dangerous ultras still at large
CHENNAI: When security agencies across the country are in a state of high alert following the Mumbai terror attacks, 12 most wanted fundamentalists, including three persons trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are on the loose after being involved in bomb attacks in Tamil Nadu. The government has announced a reward of Rs 2 lakh for five of them. Neither the special investigation team, which probed terrorism-related cases in Tamil Nadu, nor the state intelligence unit, has any inputs on their whereabouts or activities.
The absconding fundamentalists are: Abubacker Siddique alias Kakka (7 cases), Ayub alias Ashraf Ali (9 cases), Ibrahim (Coimbatore blast case), Mohammed Ali alias Yunus alias Mansoor (3 cases), Ashraf Ali (Coimbatore blast case), Mujibur Rahman alias Muji (5 cases), Mushtaq Ahmed (Chennai RSS headquarters blast case), Rasool Mydeen (2 cases), Jaguar Sadiq alias Tailor Raja alias Valarntha Raja (5 cases), Toufeeque (2 cases), Noohi N P alias Mankave Rasheed (Coimbatore blast case) and Kunju Mohammed alias Gani (Coimbatore blast case).
“We do not have specific information on them, though occasionally we get vague inputs. We had formed special parties to hunt down these accused. We have also passed on the look-out notice for these persons to the Intelligence Bureau, which has in turn intimated the immigration authorities,” Narendra Pal Singh, additional director general of police, SIT, CB-CID, told TOI.
Three of the fundamentalists — Kakka, Ayub and Thoufeeque — were trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and are experts in making explosives, police sources said. Kakka, a hardcore Al Umma activist, has seven cases against him under the Explosive Substances Act. He has been absconding since 1997. “Many of their companions have been convicted. But we could not get hold of them. There should be a concentrated effort to track these men,” a senior police official said.
The state intelligence agencies maintain that unless they have an input regarding involvement of any of these absconding accused in a criminal plot in Tamil Nadu, they are not worried.
Ayub alias Ashraf Ali, a core member of Islamic Defence Force, has been more dangerous and was the key operative behind the three train blasts in Tamil Nadu in 1997, which killed 10 persons and injured another 72. In a bid to blast the US consulate in Chennai, Ashraf Ali along with his associates had allegedly planted bombs on Anna Flyover in Chennai. He was also accused of sending parcel bombs to director Mani Ratnam for allegedly portraying Muslims in bad light in his film ‘Bombay’.
Mushtaq Ahmed, who joined hands with Imam Ali, one of the founders of Al Umma, had planted powerful explosives at the RSS headquarters in Chennai in 1993, killing 11 RSS workers. “What worries them is that these are all seasoned militants who cannot be sitting idle. As per the information we had earlier, they all had left Tamil Nadu and many of them are in the Gulf countries. We also had inputs regarding their visits to the country. But they have always managed to escape,” the police official said.
They must have used Low Vel. ammo.