RAMANATHAPURAM
The district police have enhanced round-the-clock security to BJP and Hindu Munnani leaders in the district following a threat from a group of fundamentalists acting with the objective of ‘Shahadat (martyrdom) is our goal’.
After intelligence agencies sounded an alert that the group might work with renewed vigour after the release of its ‘mastermind’ Kaja Mohideen from Puzhal Central Prison, Chennai, recently, the district police provided one more armed personal security guard to each of the leaders.
The district police took the alert seriously as they busted the group in Kilakarai in April 2018, when some of the members assembled to draw strategies to eliminate BJP and Hindu leaders who spoke against Islam, Superintendent of Police Omprakash Meena said. Besides, the group’s head A. Sheik Dawood hailed from Devipattinam in the district, he added.
The security already provided to the eight BJP and Hindu Munnani leaders, including BJP State vice-president D. Kuppuramu, BJP district president K. Muraleedharan, secretary Athma Karthik and Hindu Munnani leader Ramamurthy, had been enhanced, he said.
The fundamentalists had formed ‘Shahadat is our goal’ WhatsApp group when they met Mohideen in the Puzhal prison.
Doubting their possible links with the Islamic State (IS), the National Investigating Agency (NIA) took over the case from the district police in February and the Central agency sleuths conducted searches on the premises of 10 accused in the district and elsewhere in May. They seized three lap tops, three hard disks, 16 mobile phones, eight SIM cards, two pen drives, five memory cards, one card reader, two knives and a lot of incriminating documents, including literature and books on the IS, Jihad and Shahadat.
