Hizb militant’s arrest from Idukki puts Kerala on alert

If the police are to be believed, the militant had naively applied for a fresh passport last year, and cops checking on his antecedents zeroed in on his militant links, though Altaf reportedly insisted that he was no longer a militant.

The cops also claim him to have disclosed that militant groups in Pakistan had been printing and regularly bringing in many crores worth of counterfeit Indian currency into the country. The cops have found a couple of J&K Government identity cards from his possession, which the cops say are forged.

The arrest has anyway led the cops to looking up the scores of Kashmiri traders in Kumily selling handicraft to tourists, and the Special Branch is now busy collating information on each.

The cops say Idukki, with its harsh terrain and sparse population, is fast turning out to be a haven for militants of many hues. Top Maoist leader Sundaramurthy arrested a few months back in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, had reportedly stayed in many parts of Idukki before his arrest, and the cops had also caught Sadaratinam, an alleged LTTE militant from the same area a few weeks later, living under cover among Tamil labourers.

Kerala now has an estimated one million migrant manual laborers from many parts of the country living and working in the state. There is still no means to verify or document their whereabouts and prevent militant elements from using that as a cover. The cops in Kochi, for instance, had launched an exercise to document the details of tens of thousands of migrant labourers in the city after another important Maoist leader from Andhra, Malli Raju Reddy, was caught near Kochi last month, passing off as an Andhra labourer. But that effort still has not reached anywhere.

Home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said the Government had decided to spare no efforts to cope with the threat. He said the Special Branch would be beefed up with direct appointments, specialised training and fixed tenures for its personnel, tourist spots would be put under close surveillance, the labour department would begin a survey of migrant labourers, even some civil rights outfits would go under the scanner for militant links.

That apart, the state police intelligence would now also have monthly meetings with its counterparts in neighbouring states to exchange notes, and step up intelligence sharing efforts.