Former DGPs blame government policy for spread of bomb culture
Shobha Warrier in Madras
Bomb culture, terrorism and widespread violence, all began
with the entry of Sri Lankan militants into Tamil Nadu, according
to three state former directors general of police, K Mohandas, W I Dawaram and
Rajasekharan Nair.
Mohandas was DGP of Tamil Nadu when Sri
Lankan Tamil militants were given protection, which was the
beginning of a different kind of terrorism in the state, the latest
example of which was the serial bomb blasts in Coimbatore.
When politicians tried to restrict the freedom of the police, Mohandas had warned
M G Ramachandran, the then chief minister, that it would soon lead to a bomb
culture in the state, a warning that has proved prophetic. MGR would not
listen to him as Delhi wanted MGR to pamper and help the Sri
Lankan Tamils. Mohandas squarely blamed the then
central government's policy and the callousness and apathy of
today's politicians for the problems that the state faces now.
The best example he cited was his experience after he and his
deputy Dawaram, with the help of other policemen, successfully undertook
Operation Tiger and seized all the arms from the LTTE which was
later returned to them under orders from MGR.
The first bomb blasts in the state was during the Naxalite movement
in 1969 but only crude bombs were used then. Things took a turn for the worse with the influx of Sri Lankan Tamil militants, and the first
explosion took place in 1984 at Meenambakkom airport. A cargo
unit full of explosives was to be loaded onto an Air Lanka plane to
Colombo. Like it happened at Coimbatore, the timing went wrong
and the bomb exploded at the airport itself, killing
27 people. Mohandas was the DGP and Dawaram the commissioner
of police then.
"We arrested many and recovered a lot of
devices including explosives. Within a week I got a call from
G Parthasarathy in Delhi, chairman of the foreign policy planning
committee who was also dealing with Sri Lankan affairs. He and
his advisors confronted me and asked me to go slow on the case.
When I said it was not possible and asked him about the 27 people
who were killed in the blast, do you knows his reply? He said,
'When you have 900 crore population, this 27 is nothing. What is
important is policy!' This is the way they look at these things.
They are not bothered about the lives of the people or the difficulties
faced by the people. Politicians want to make money and gain political
mileage out of everything. I feel that is the way they are behaving
even now," recalls Mohandas.
The second bomb went off at Besant Nagar, in south Madras, where LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham lived. Soon Tamil Nadu regularly witnessed bomb blasts
and other terrorist activities with various Tamil militant organisations
fighting among themselves to assert their supremacy. Dawaram remembered
the blast which took place on the 1st of January 1987
on Wallagah Road. "Soon after that, near Pachaippa College
on the railway track, there was another blast. Then, we found
another bomb underneath the train. I didn't know how to defuse
it, but somehow I succeeded. I still remember the
picture in all the newspapers."
The major breakthrough came when Dawaram combed the Mettupalayam
area and arrested Imam Ali who is still in jail under TADA. "We
found him training many boys. So, even though he is in prison,
the boys trained by him are freely moving around in the city.
We also came to know that Imam Ali used to go to Bangladesh quite
often. Muslim fundamentalist organisations get help and training
from outside," Dawaram said.
"It all started with the growth of the LTTE in Tamil Nadu
and it was from them that other extremist organisations and fundamental
groups and Tamil chauvinist groups learnt to manufacture
explosives. They were training people too,'' says Rajasekharan
Nair.
It is not a difficult task at all to make a bomb, especially with
easy availability of gelatine and RDX thus making it "less
costly than a lipstick," as Mohandas puts it. When terrorism
does not require any ideology, when terrorists are paid to do
it, when terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon, when dedicated
and terminally ill people are available to undertake terrorist
activities, and Tamil Nadu with its past record of harbouring
militants will not be able to escape its gruesome aftermath.
Asked what should be done to prevent terrorism, Mohandas said,
"There should be international co-operation against terrorism
because it has no frontiers."
"As long
as people think that terrorism is an answer to all our problems,
it shall continue," said Rajasekharan Nair.
"It has
never been so bad. If I had been there, I would have eliminated,
killed all these terrorists who target innocent lives," Dawaram
said, angrily.
Elections '98
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