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| Chasing shadows in south India | | Liberating Hyderabad is Lashkar-e-Toiba's priority | |
BL KAK
NEW DELHI, JUNE 25: 'Classified' intelligence reports contain sensational account of how Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has deeply penetrated in parts of south India, particularly Andhra Pradesh. According to these reports, the ISI have, over the years, aided and abetted the dreaded terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e-Toiba, to increase the number of its cadres in Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
And the ISI's mission: Make Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh, the hub of its activities in south India. Higher-ups in the Union Ministry say that the ISI has a "massive base" in Hyderabad. "Its thrust, subversive activities and secesionist plans are of grave concern and great threat to the State's security", notes a secret Andhra Pradesh intelligence document. If the document were any guide, the ISI, the most deadly agency that aids militancy in South Asia, is spreading to India's southern part.
Government sleuths give several reasons for Hyderabad -- especially the Muslim-dominated Old City area -- emerging the epicentre of ISI operations after 1992. The Union Home Ministry and the Andhra State police have deployed special squads to bust its network, which officials concede connects Hyderabad to other sensitive areas in the south Indian States of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
Thus, Hyderabad, Warangal, Nalgonda and Mahboobnagar in Andhra Pradesh, Bangalore and Gulbarga in Karnataka, Malappuram and Palakkad in Kerala, and Chennai, Coimbatore and Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu are under the scrutiny of intelligence agencies. Their brief: Prevent the madrasas (Muslim religious schools) from being used as recruiting centres for militants.
The nearly 15 Islamic fundamentalist organisations that are active in the four southern States, too, are under observation, sources say. Hyderabad, according to intelligence specialists, attracts the ISI for various reasons. First, it is the city with an active Muslim population from whom the Pakistani agency has been recruiting youths to various militant outfits. The ISI has selected many soft targets across the country, and "carefully cultivated" a network in the southern States, said a senior security official, who did not want himself to be identifed.
"Militancy in madrasas is the most dangerous threat that the ISI is posing these days", he feels. According to him, one reason why "Hyderabad is a soft and easy target" is that there are a number of vital defence installations in the city, especially those of the Defence Research Development Organisation. Hyderabad's proximity to Mumbai and other Maharashtra districts like Aurangabad, Nanded, Beed and Akola, which are escape routes, is another advantage. The most active terrorist group that is recruiting Muslims from the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad is the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), the ISI-aided urban warfare outfit operating in the Kashmir Valley.
Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, LeT's supreme leader, in his messages to several Muslim fundamentalist organisations in India, was reported to have proclaimed that Lashkar-e-Toiba's priorites "were the liberation of Kashmir and Hyderabad". Indian Muslim Mohammadi Mujahideen is said to be the LeT's sister outfit.
Official view: Tackling the growing militancy in the Muslim-dominated Old City (Secunderabad), which has a minority population of more than two million, is tough. A special task force, specially created for tackling ISI activities, closely monitors the Friday prayers in the mosques and the Urdu schools in the city and surrounding districts. Some of these mosques are allegedly being misused by the ISI for recruitng Muslim youth.
According to official information, audio cassettes with anti-India speeches and pamphlets are being secretly circulated whenever there is a major terrorist strike in Jammu and Kashmir. Not long ago, the Hyderabad police had seized hoards of such cassettes and pamphlets containing the provocative speeches of the founder-president Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, Masood Azhar.
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