The Safe Base in Paradise

Frederick Forsyth’s new novel The Afghan is about how Islamic Terrorists hijack a ship, convert it into a floating bomb and plan to explode it in the vicinity of another ship carrying the leaders of the G-8 countries. Like all other Forsyth novels like The Day of the Jackal and The Fist of God, this one captivates you till the end with edge of the seat suspense. In one of the scenes in the novel, two crew mates of a ship docked somewhere in the West Indies are murdered and two terrorists who are Kerala Muslims take their place. Forsyth explains that majority of the Indian Muslims are peaceful, there are some indoctrinated ones in Kerala.

There have been incidents in Kerala showing that trouble is brewing in the paradise. One such incident was the Marad massacre.

On May 2, 2003, armed men hacked eight fishermen to death in Marad, Kerala. The judicial commission report which probed this incident found all arms of the “secular” Congress Govt., which was ruling till now, guilty . According to the commission, atleast one senior politician belonging to the Muslim League, a coalition buddy of Congress, had advance knowledge of this conspiracy. The other findings of the commission are explosive and “vote bank” politics was explcitly blamed for this.[Courting the fundamentalists]

Recently it was revealed that Mohammad Fahad, one of the two Pakistani militants arrested in Mysore was based in Kozhikode.

Fahad, hailing from north Nizamabad in Karachi, was issued an Indian visa on November 30, 2005 for 45 days. The Karnataka police had confirmed that he overstayed his time. His stepbrother Abdul Khader, it is learnt, has been taken into custody by the Karnataka police. Abdul Khader is running a fancy shop in Mysore and both his kids are studying in Bangalore, while his wife is residing at Kappad.

Police sources said that the raids at the industrial unit had been carried out for two reasons. The police suspect that the company owner has some relationship with Abdulla Koya. Apart from that a blast had occurred at the site five years ago, the police said.[Massive search operation in Kozhikode district]

So far we have not seen any international terrorists from Kerala, but with political parties actively courting terrorists for staying in power, Kerala could serve a base for such folks.

Cross-posted to the INI Signal.

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