SPECIAL REPORT

Convicts in regular touch with terror modules outside

CM wants CBI inquiry

By Arun Lakshman /Thiruvananthapuram

The prisons in Kerala are turning into terror havens with several known criminals entering the jails by doing petty offences and then working for terror operations from within the jails.
The recent case is that  of former minister and veteran leader of the Kerala Congress (B)R Balakrishna Pillai having used the mobile phone in judicial custody, has forced the police and the intelligence agencies to scan the phone details of prisons in Kerala.
Sources in the jail department told Organiser that around 120 mobile telephone connections were confiscated from the prisoners inside prominent central prisons in Kerala. Kerala has three prominent central prisons, Poojapura in Thiruvananthapuram , Viyyur in Thrissur and Pallikunnu in Kannur. The State intelligence sources told Organiser that the connections were used to even call international contacts and that this is where the terror angle comes to play .
It may be recalled that in the recent Delhi bomb blast case a Keralite is under scanner following inputs from the cyber wings of the intelligence bureau. The police and the intelligence agencies were surprised when they  found that several international calls were made to and for from the jails using SIM cards which were also quite unfamiliar in this part of the country.
The intelligence agencies has already reported the matter to the State government and the Union government. It may be recalled that several hardened criminals and terrorists including Thadiyantavida Naseer, notorious for recruiting Keralite youths for Kashmir is also in jail in Kerala.
Naseer is considered to be heading the LeT operations in South India and is a master brain behind the assembling of explosives and according to intelligence sources has high level of contacts across the border to create mischief in India.
Naseer and several other criminals who are under judicial custody have been indoctrinating several petty criminals who are in acquaintance with these hardened terrorists and are spreading the ideology of terror and hatred . This, according to highly placed sources in the Indian intelligence has resulted in the agencies having a close monitor on the activities which are taking place within the jails in the State.
The activities of these hardened terrorists from within the jails of Kerala is creating a major law and order problem within the jails of the State .There is also indications that the jail authorities are in the process of creating a list of criminals on parole and with the new UDF government in saddle with the Muslim League being a prominent partner in it, there is a probability of some of the criminals getting out on parole. Highly placed sources in the State jail department however told Organiser that such probability  is remote as most of these criminals are still in judicial custody and are awaiting trial in cases such as Marad communal carnage and the terror operatives like Thadiyantavida Naseer, Riyaz, Shihab who were all linked with the Kashmir recruitment case .
The presence of these terror operatives in the jails and the unabated usage of mobile phone connections within the jails of Kerala has resulted in a failure of the intelligence as sources indicate that several conspiracies affecting the security of the nation would have taken place in prisons in the State without the intelligence not having a wind of the same.