Madras, a new capital for the underworld?

Last Tuesday, two armed gangsters who opened fire while trying to rob a trader were arrested in Madras.

On Independence Day eve, the police captured massive quantities of explosives as they were being smuggled into the city.

In March, the police and intelligence sleuths foiled an attempt to plant tiffin-box bombs in one of the city's high-rise buildings in the nick of time.

Three different incidents, three different groups, three different strategies. But all points to the same fact -- that the gun-culture and bomb psyche which entered Tamil Nadu with Jayalalitha's All India Anna Dravida Munntera Kazhagam regime continue unhindered.

If last week's was one more incident of simple robbery where the culprits knew how to use a gun -- and took vicarious pleasure in its usage -- the pre-Independence Day threat related to socio-political concerns of certain casteist groups. And the March haul of explosives can easily be connected to fundamentalists with possible links to Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence.

"We have got all types here," an intelligence officer says, "Plain gangsters, blackmailers or supari ('hit') contractors, political fringe groups wanting to be heard, fundamentalists from pan-Tamil extremist organisations, Hindu radicals, Muslim extremists... "

The tiffin-bomb incident relates to the last category, where the hands of Muslim fundamentalists were seen. Two years ago, similar groups had bombed the Hindu Munnai and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh offices in the city. Earlier this year, they had also retaliated in some measure when one of their leaders, Palani Baba, was shot dead by pro-Hindu groups.

''Their numbers have been on the rise lately,'' says a police officer, "It is difficult to contain these groups as they are now using new cadres with no police records.'' According to him, the spark for such movements was provided by the Ayodhya demolition in December 1992. Local events, where Hindu fundamentalists rose against them, too provided an impetus to Muslim extremism.

Incidents of pan-Tamil militant groups taking to bomb attacks dates back to the pre Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam days. ''Though it was the Rajiv Gandhi assassination which focused attention on the such activities, pan-Tamil groups have been here much before," the officer said.

As example, he refers to the Naxalite violence in the state, dating back to the 1970s. Former additional director-general of police W I Dawaram, in fact, had acquired quite a name, fighting the radicals of north Arcot and Dharmapuri districts.

What is of greater concern to the police, however, is the current spread of gun-culture into districts, cutting across all class and caste lines. The caste clashes in the southern districts, first in 1995 and now this year, saw a free use of crude and not-so-crude country-made bombs. One leader had even threatened to abort the I-Day 50 fete.

Most of the gangs, the police maintain, had grown in stature, thanks chiefly to the AIADMK government's mothering. "Some of these hoods have local patrons; others have their backing from the state capital where they are used for special assignments," police say.

The gangsters are usually used either for eviction of tenants or for attacking political opponents. ''There have been cases when even ruling party members were targeted,'' a police official says, "As a quid pro quo, the hoods are given a free run of certain towns and districts."

"They have become so daring that they kill their enemies come what may. In a particular case, a known gangster, Lingam, was killed inside the Nagercoil sub-jail -- the killers had used a ladder to climb inside!" he added.

Political patronage apart, demoralisation and corruption are the other causes for the gun-culture catching up. "Karunanidhi was right in saying that 75 per cent of the police force is rotten," the same officer continued, "But even after an year of his rule, the situation has not improved. Two gangsters were killed in police encounters -- that's it."

And then there is public indifference. The police say gangsterism wouldn't have soaked in so much had the common man been more sprightly.

''There is a total lack of public reaction," the police officer maintains, "Every time a bomb goes off or a gun is fired, there is an immediate hue and cry -- and then complete, indifference. complete silence..."