Largely ignored by intelligence and security agencies as a potential terrorist haven, Kerala has emerged as one of the key hubs of extremist and terrorist activities in the region. Several groups advocating extremist ideologies and activities have had a relatively free run in the state, primarily because of political complicity and operational laxity on the part of the state as well as federal police and intelligence agencies.
The recent gory incident of a professor’s arm being hacked for setting a question paper which, allegedly, denigrated Islam, in Ernakulam district has stirred the police as well as the political parties to take action against an extremist alliance. But there is hardly any concern over the Popular Front of India (PFI)’s rapid growth and the possibility of it turning the state into a terror sanctuary. This attitude is reflected in the lack of action on the ground to detect, destroy and deter not only extremist groups and alliances like PFI but to set up a robust intelligence and counter-terrorism mechanism in the state.
The fact that the National Investigating Agency (NIA) was reinvestigating many of the recent terrorist incidents in Kerala and unearthing damning details about the network of terror and extremist groups raises questions about the will and capability of the provincial intelligence and police agencies. The conduct of the politically-connected Kerala Inspector-General, Tomin J. Thachankary, not only for corruption but also for his mysterious meetings with terrorists in Qatar, only magnifies this question mark.
Before looking at the growth and clout of extremist alliances like PFI — comprising Karnataka Forum for Dignity, National Development Front (Kerala) and Manitah Neethi Pasarai (Tamil Nadu) — it would be quite useful to investigate the global linkages that groups and individuals in Kerala had with the global jihad movement. To understand this hidden thread of associations, and why we should we really be worried about Kerala, the story of two terrorist leaders — CAM Basheer and Thadiyantavide Nazeer — can be useful.
Basheer, from a middle-class family in Aluva (Ernakulam), studied at the Aeronautical Engineering College in Chalakudy, not far from his home town, and did a course from a flight training institute in Bangalore before joining the Mumbai international airport. He became a member of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) as a college student and rose to become the group’s state president in 1987. It was in Mumbai that Basheer began advocating violence as a means to protest discriminations against Muslims in India. In 1991-92, when the country was caught in the maelstrom of violence over the disputed mosque in Ayodhya, Basheer began organising rallies and protest marches in Mumbai. After the demolition of the mosque in December 1992, Basheer was among those who began planning a violent revenge. His name cropped up first in a terror plot in Ahmedabad in 1992, then in the 1993 anniversary bombing of trains in north India, but it was the Mumbai blasts of 1993 which forced him to flee to Saudi Arabia.
Basheer’s association with the three main accused in the first serial train bombings in India in December 1993 reveal the emergence of a terrorist network stretching from Saudi Arabia to Kerala. Of the three accused, Dr Jalees Ansari, Abdul Karim Tunda and Azzam Ghouri, the last one fled to Saudi Arabia and met up with radical Indian Muslims, including Basheer, who had by then become a key functionary of LeT which had substantial support in mosques, charity organisations, educational institutions and the royalty in Riyadh. Basheer and others were influenced by the senior LeT functionary and brother-in-law of the group’s founder Hafiz Saeed, Abdur Rahman Makki, who for several years studied and taught Islamic theology in Saudi Arabia. Basheer and Ghouri set up the first LeT cell in Saudi Arabia to recruit Indians, particularly those from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, to carry out attacks in India. Basheer was responsible for raising funds and facilitating the training of recruits while Ghouri was instrumental in recruiting new cadres and establishing operational cells in India, particularly in the southern parts.
Two close associates of Basheer were Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, the Indian-born Saudi national, said to be the Chief Financial Officer of LeT with extensive contacts in Saudi Arabia and other west Asian countries, and Abdul Aziz al-Hooti, who runs a flourishing automobile components dealership and several internet cafes in Muscat.
Of the many Indians, including Malayalis, who came into contact with Basheer, was Sarfaraz Nawaz, a key SIMI leader. Nawaz, from Ernakulum, had joined SIMI in 1995 when he was studying at Nadwat-ul-Ulema in Lucknow. He subsequently went to Delhi and worked as SIMI’s office secretary before moving to Muscat, where he met al-Tooti and Basheer. The trio either funded or facilitated several terrorist attacks and the birth of Indian Mujahideen (IM). The serial bombings carried out by IM in 2008 were funded by the Basheer-Tooti network. Nawaz had reportedly sent a substantial sum of money through hawala channels to some of his former SIMI colleagues, including another Malayali named Thadiyantavide Nazeer.
Nawaz, in fact, had close contacts with Nazeer and was said to be greatly influenced by Nazeer’s call for jihad during the latter’s speeches at various mosques and meeting places. Nazeer is a LeT recruit and has admitted to being influenced by jihadi ideologues like Hassan al Banna, Syed Qutb and Mawdudi. Nazeer, alias Haji Ustad, alias Umar Haji, had indoctrinated about 185 Keralites to pursue terror activities and was looking for training facilities in Kashmir and Pakistan. Four of his men were killed in an encounter in Kashmir early October 2008. Nazeer had escaped to Bangladesh after the Bangalore blasts with the help of one of LeT’s Bangladesh contacts, Mubashir Shahid. He was arrested in December 2009 following the disclosures made by LeT leader in Chicago, David Coleman Headley, one of the main accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Nazeer’s LeT handler in Bangladesh was Khurram Khaiyam, alias Faisal, who along with Nazeer, was integral to the LeT’s plans for serial attacks in India, and in Bangladesh, in 2009 and 2010. The plan was to create a team of Indian terrorists hiding in Bangladesh, brief them about specific targets, and facilitate their movement across India. Headley’s visits to several Indian cities were primarily to locate the targets for the new terror team which even had a name, Deccan Mujahideen, a title which closely resemble that of Indian Mujahideen which carried out the 2008 serial attacks in Ahmedabad, Delhi and Bangaluru. There were several others in the network who have not been caught, many of them were from Kerala and worked in the textile sector in Bangladesh.
Extremist groups like PFI and others currently operating in Kerala are offshoots of SIMI which, after its ban in 2001, has transformed into networks of modules engaged in establishing a jihadi landscape in India. Basheer and Nazeer are two wheels of this juggernaut which must be stopped before it turns a paradise of coconut lagoons and verdant forests into a bloody battlefield.
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