Day after terror email , Delhi police join probe in TN

The local police had yesterday zeroed in on a cybercafe in Palayamkottai, the sister town of Tirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu, about 600 km away, from where they said the threat message was sent to the US consulate in Chennai.

While police continued to question the owners of the two netcafes in Palayamkottai, apparently sealed since the raids yesterday, a few “suspects,” including T S Jinda, said to be a lecturer of the Sadakkathullah Appa College in Palayamkottai, and some non-teaching staff, computer operators in the college, and a couple of students were picked up.

Also, at least 10 persons, including the owners of the Broadband Netcafe and Nellai Online, two cybercafes in Palayamkottai, were picked up for questioning. Some of the persons hailed from Melapalayam, police sources said.

The role of fundamentalists in the e-mail threat is being probed considering that Palayamkottai is close to Melapalayam, which has witnessed communal unrest in the past.

Islamic fundamentalists were said to be involved in four “communal” murders in 1997 of persons backing the Sangh Parivar groups. Following the arrest of Jinda, hailing from NGO Colony in Tirunvelveli, the police is not ruling out the involvement of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) or for that matter, the Al Umma, prime accused in the Coimbatore serial blasts in 1998.

However, the sender of the hoax mail remained elusive and no arrests have been made so far.

Last evening, the Tirunelveli police traced the e-mail to an IP address at the Broadband Netcafe at Murugankuruchi in Palayamkottai.

Another angle the police are checking is possible business rivalry. The owner of Broadband Netcafe had left another cybercafe to start his own facility. Police are probing whether someone used this “prank” to “settle scores.”

In the mid-1990s, Tamil Nadu was a communal hotbed of Muslim fundamentalist activity. The Al Umma came to the forefront after the 1988 Coimbatore serial blasts. The outfit’s leader, S. A. Basha, and more than 160 Al Umma activists, who are facing trial in the blast case, are now in Coimbatore prison.