ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

TN Islamic terrorists' bizarre designs baffle intelligence officials

It is a bizarre world into which the Islamic terrorists and their sympathisers in parts of Tamil Nadu are sliding into.

They have their own ways -- and their own logic.

"What's your logic?" asks the youth, looking confused, if not bewildered. "The cops take them into custody, put them in prison, even beat them up. Yet, they too feed their captives twice, if not thrice a day. But when we feed the same people, and give them shelter, the very same cops blame us, harass us and put us in prison, too."

The case of the youth arguing the case of his ilk who have been arrested for harbouring ''terrorists'' is not all that funny. The boy of 20 does not seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing, but looks like believing in every word he has just uttered.

It has not come out in the open, as yet, nor have the authorities in the state become aware of this kind of ''indoctrination of the worst kind'' that could play havoc with communal harmony and national unity.

But central intelligence agencies in coastal Tamil Nadu in particular are said to have come across such trends in the youth they have been interrogating, lately.

"You should see them to believe me," says an intelligence official. "They are mostly in the 17 to 22 age group, mostly unemployed and come from socio-economically backward families. Mainly, they need employment, and money to help their families, but given the frustrations of their past, they become sitting ducks for poachers roaming the place using religion as cover for their anti-national activities."

"Why should I accept Basha or anyone else as my leader?" an arrested youth in Tiruchi prison is known to have told his interrogators, referring to the Islamic fundamentalist leader arrested in connection with the Coimbatore serial blasts. "I will become a Basha myself one day, raise my own group, and fight my own battles."

Ammani is his name, and he was wanted by the police in a few cases of terrorist killings and bomb blasts. "But the cops have arrested me only in a murder case, and I am the accused number eight. I need not worry until the judge decides to hang all the seven accused before me," he added with a smug smile. "If I have to die at the hangman's noose, so be it."

Ammani is not the only one of his kind, said the intelligence officer. "There are any number of Ammanis coming up in the Tamil Nadu backyard, and they are fed well on the big money they are paid." Sources, unknown.

"In a way, Ammani is a hired killer, but he kills or maims, in the name of Islam. Rather, he has been brain-washed into believing it by the people who have recruited him."

The story of Ammani, for instance, is one of socio-economic deprivation within a closed community finding its perverted expression elsewhere.

Brought up by his widowed mother along with a younger sister, Ammani is known to have suffered humiliation at the hands of the local leaders within his Islamic community in Nagapattinam village.

"They would abuse my mother, and I could say my namaaz only outside the mosque when the rich and the powerful said theirs inside. I had to drop out of school young, and my sister too could not complete her education because of poverty. Where there is money to be made, I am now there."

Can't he reform himself? "Yes. I shall. Feed me thrice a day, or give me a decent job and place in society, I shall drop my gun here and now. Or else, give me money, and assign me a target, I shall finish him."

Ammani's is a case of personal failures and frustration taking the better of his intelligence, which has now become crooked. He had started by fighting the inequalities and the injustices within the jamaad (community), and soon found out there was more to fight for, and there were more like him to join hands with him.

"When you fight societal ills, there are many who support you," he said.

That gave him the image of a natural leader of the frustrated youth like him, and "I saw that the numbers and our vocal voices made the difference in the jamaad affairs."

As religion provided the basis for his battles, it overwhelmed him dramatically, particularly after the Ayodhya demolition, but even more so after the riots in Coimbatore last November that left 19 Muslims dead "with no government to weep for them."

Does he think that he can overpower the State, and create an ''independent Islamic State'' that's his goal? "Maybe I will not win, but I can still fight."

And quickly he turns to the neighbouring Sri Lanka, "where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and its leader Prabhakaran have been fighting for their 'Eelam' without any letup for the past so many years."

What about the Pakistan angle to his fight?

"Why only Pakistan?" said Ammani. "The whole world is our home, and we do not count on Pakistan or Inter-Services Intelligence for funds."

The truth and the truthfulness of it, sticks in your throat. But Ammani once again turned to Sri Lanka and the ''Eelam'' Tamils. "They haven't died when India turned them out. The Jaffna Tamils are now everywhere in the world, and we too can survive that way."

The ''Sri Lankan angle'' finds its mention once again as you drive back. You stop by a medical store, and call out the young salesman, using Ammani's name.

"Yes, I am in Ammani's group," said the boy, whose Muslim owner or family doesn't know about the links. "Ammani chooses only Islamic youth from poor and downtrodden families, particularly converts from 'low caste' Hindu communities, and shuns the rich and the powerful, who have to fear the cops and the government."

Does he find any purpose in continuing the fight in Ammani's name? "Why not?" said the medical store boy who too is obviously indoctrinated.

"After all, youths like me are dying out there daily just because their leader Prabhakaran asked them to fight. You cannot get your rights without a fight."

"They are not as adventurists as yet as they make themselves to be," said the intelligence officer. "But they have the potential to become one, particularly given their warped logic."

"Whether or not the LTTE is providing them with arms and training, about which there are no clues as yet, definitely, it has provided them with a motive that is both too high and unrealistic,'' said the source. ''And there are any number of such groups, independent or inter-connected in the coastal villages, for whom Sri Lanka is just a 'stone's throw away', both geographically and emotionally."

Tell us what you think of this report