Five held in TN over blasts in lower courts: NIA, Kerala cops fear ressurection of Al-Umma

The arrest of five persons from Tamil Nadu by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the blasts at five lower courts in south India strengthens the fears of Kerala police about the reincarnation of the proscribed Al-Umma as a new terror outfit. Senior officials believe that the outfit called Base Movement is a regrouping of Al-Umma, which was banned following the Coimbatore blasts in 1998, and a section of the Al-qaeda. It came up with bases in Tamil Nadu and Kerala after Al-qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri launched Al-qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in August 2014. A senior officer involved in the probe into the blast at Malappuram collectorate said that Al-Umma may have transformed into Base Movement after it came under police scanner in connection with various blasts including the one outside BJP’s office at Malleswaram in Bangalore. The officer, who chose to remain anonymous, told Firstpost that the outlawed outfit may have assumed the new name in order to divert the attention of the security agencies. While Al-Umma mostly targetted Hindu shrines and leaders, the focus of the Base Movement so far has been courts. The new outfit registered its presence by planting a bomb on the premises of a court complex at Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh on 7 April. The Chittoor blast was followed by a second blast at the collectorate-cum-district courts complex at Kollam in Kerala in June. The Principal District Judge Court complex at Mysuru in Karantaka was the third target, when a pressure cooker bomb went off there on 1 August. This was followed by a fourth low-intensity blast on the premises of Nellore district court in Andhra Pradesh on September 12 and the fifth near the first class magistrate court at Malappuram in Kerala. [caption id=“attachment_3132842” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] Reports said that the outfit had planned more such attacks in Maharashtra, Telengana and Kerala besides targeting nearly two dozen VIPs, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The NIA got the details of the plan from the interrogation of the five persons arrested from Madurai and Chennai on Monday and Tuesday respectively. Although all the Base Movement operatives detained by the NIA are from Tamil Nadu, the state did not figure in their target. Police officials believe that this may be to avoid any suspicion and ensure their smooth operation from Tamil Nadu. The Al-Umma was banned following its involvement in the Coimbatore blasts. The judicial probe into the blast revealed that the outfit that came into existence in the wake of the Babri Mosque demolition in 1992 hatched the explosion in a bid to eliminate senior BJP leader L K Advani. The probe found that blasts in which 58 people were killed was hatched by Al-Umma with the help of Kerala-based People’s Democratic Party headed by Abdul Nasser Madhani to avenge the demolition of the Babri mosque. Police officials believe that the Base Movement may have been trying to build itself by scaling up its targets gradually. Their initial operations were not intended to kill anybody. The IEDs used for the low intensity blasts in the five places did not have any shrapnel attached to it. The devices were planted at places where minimum casualties could occur. Sunil Babu K, Kanhangad deputy superintendent of police and the investigating officer of the case, said the initial objective of outfit was only to spread fear. They also may have sought to send a message by selecting lower courts as their targets. The officer said that the outfit was concerned over the continued detention of Madhani in a jail in Bangalore and the killing of five Muslim youths in a police encounter in Andhra Pradesh in April 2015. In a pen-drive left at the Chittur blast site, the activists of the Base Movement had referred to the killing of the youths, who included erstwhile Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) leader Viqaruddin Ahmed. They were killed while being taken to a court. Soon After the blast at Chittur, the group had also sent a letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes there claiming that they had carried out the explosion as an act of retaliation for the killing of the youths. The Base Movement had begun its activities after informing Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. A letter sent by post to his secretary in January 2015 informed him that they were beginning their activities that year. The letter contained a map of India and a picture of slain Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The second letter was sent to French consulate in Bengaluru in January 2016 marking their protest against the visit of their President Francois Hollande. It also contained the map of India and Osama bin Laden’s picture. The group had left these signs behind the two explosions at Kollam and Malappuram in Kerala as well. However, the NIA has not got any clue regarding involvement of people from the state in the blasts. Malappuram district superintendent of police Debesh Kumar Behera does not rule the involvement of local people behind the blast at the collectorate. He said that a team of police officials from the district would question the five persons arrested by the NIA to find out their local links. “The NIA and police officials from different states are involved in the investigation. We will have to wait till the arrested persons are remanded to the police custody for interrogating them. We hope to get a chance by the end of this week,” the SP told the Firstpost. He said that the police did not know much about the Base Movement. He said that he also could not confirm whether members of the erstwhile Al-Umma were behind the new group until they investigated the matter thoroughly. Highly placed sources said NIA would take over the investigation as there are striking similarities between all the recent blasts. The special investigation team formed by the Kerala police to investigate the blast had suspected some persons with links with Al-Umma behind the blast. They include K P Noohu alias Mankave Rasheed, who has been absconding since the Coimbatore blast and Ooma Babu and S Kunjimuhammad, two of the accused in the blast case. All the three hail from north Kerala. The sources believe that Abubacker Siddique alias Kakkam, who is declared as one of the 12 most wanted extremists, could have brought the different terror modules under the single banner of the Base Movement. A post graduate in English literature, he carries a reward of Rs.2 lakhs on his head. Siddique, who hails from Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu, has seven cases pending against him, including the blast at Hindu Munnani office in Chennai in 1995, parcel bomb case in Nagapattinam in 1995, Trichy cantonment bomb case in 1999 and Chittoor bomb blast case in 2016. A team of police officials from Malappuram had visited his house at Nagapttinam following the blast at the collectorate. Siddique who had received training in Pakistan and Afghanistan is suspected to be behind the letters that the Base Movement sent to various people. Thrissur Range Inspector General of Police S Ajith Kumar, who is monitoring the investigation, said that only NIA would be able to say more about the links of various people with the terrorist outfit involved in the blasts. He said that the state police was rendering all required assistance to the agency in the investigation.