Connect the red spots

December 28, 2006: Suspected terrorists barged into the prestigious Indian Institute of Science IISc campus in Bangalore and opened fire indiscriminately, killing a retired professor of IIT Delhi and injuring four others. The attackers were believed to be part of a LeT module

May 18, 2007: A powerful bomb blast killed nine people and injured more than 50 at the historic Mecca Masjid, near the Charminar in Hyderabad. When the blast went off, hundreds of worshippers had gathered to offer Friday prayers

August 25, 2007: Twin blasts in Hyderabad, one in Lumbini Amusement Park and another at Gokul Chat, an eatery, killed more than 40 people and caused serious injuries for many more. The Andhra Pradesh government has blamed international terrorist outfits based in Bangladesh and Pakistan for the explosions

As Hyderabad grapples with the terrible bomb attacks, a new and disturbing perception has emerged: south India could be terror8217;s new target. Two major incidents of explosions coming barely within two months of each other, and killing more than 50, have shaken the security agencies.

In Karnataka, it took the December 2006 attack on the IISc to shake the state administration out of its complacency. The shoot-out was the state8217;s first ever brush with terrorism. The hi-tech city has been on a terror alert ever since. In Tamil Nadu, with the rounding up of almost all the top functionaries of the Al Umma in the Coimbatore blasts case, the state believed it had wound up the only 8216;terrorist8217; outfit. But subsequent incidents have the special division, which keeps an eye on terrorist activities in the state, wary again.

First, an e-mail bomb threat in December 2005 to Parliament was traced to a cybercafe in Palayamkottai near Tirunelveli, where the Al Umma is said to have become active once more. But the police, including a special team from Delhi, could not make a breakthrough in the case.

In July 2006, the Coimbatore police claimed to have busted 8216;a conspiracy to unleash terror8217; in Coimbatore City, rounding up five people, including some members of a little-known outfit called the Manitha Needhi Pasarai MNP, allegedly on the watch list of the state intelligence agencies, which also claim to be closely monitoring its 8216;foreign funding8217;.

While Kerala is the venue for occasional extremist violence, the state is yet to face a major terror strike. But, the recent acquittal and return to Kerala of Abdul Nasser Mahdani, leader of the People8217;s Democratic Party, earlier called Islamic Sevak Sangh ISS, in the Coimbatore serial blasts case, is bound to revive old fears of communal flare-ups stoked during the ISS8217;s early years.

8220;Though Kerala itself has not witnessed any major terror attacks, there are indications that many Pakistan-based terror groups have active modules or linkages with some fundamentalist groups in the state,8221; points out an August 2006 study by the Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The study goes on to point out that 8220;despite incriminating evidence of co-operation between Kerala-based groups and major pan-Islamic terrorist organisations, there is general lethargy in the state police machinery and intelligence agencies to crack down on such groups owing to the political patronage they enjoy in Kerala. Many of these groups have openly allied with major political Fronts in recent years, thus stymieing a concrete response to their anti-national activities8221;.