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Home ministry cell to monitor growth of terrorism in South

George Iype in New Delhi

Home Minister Lal Kishinchand Advani has set up a special cell in the home ministry to monitor militant groups and insurgent activity in the four southern states.

Sources said the South Cell, patterned on the existing Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir cells, will formulate counter-insurgency strategies aimed at curbing fundamentalist and anti-national activity in the southern states, especially Tamil Nadu.

The South Cell will liaise with the directors general of police and the intelligence chiefs of the four southern states. The cell will be headed by a joint secretary who will report to Home Secretary B P Singh.

Sources said Advani decided to set up the cell after a meeting of the chief secretaries and DGPs of the four southern states Singh held recently recommended a central mechanism to combat militant activity.

Central intelligence officials, who interrogated the accused in the bomb blasts in Coimbatore, revealed that militant groups funded by foreign agencies are active in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

A home ministry official told Rediff On The NeT that the South Cell's top priority would be to monitor the activities of groups like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Tamil Nadu, the People's War Group in Andhra Pradesh and Muslim fundamentalist groups in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

"The South Cell will also investigate how Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency is aiding and abetting militants in southern India," the official said. Intelligence reports in the last three years, he disclosed, have confirmed that the ISI is actively associated with militancy in the deep south.

The South Cell, which will periodically review the law and order scenario with state government officials, will also seek security reports from state home secretaries every month.

Currently, the home ministry has three such special cells -- for Ayodhya, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. The Prime Minister's Office took charge of the J&K Cell -- during the tenure of Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao -- following serious differences between then home minister S B Chavan and his deputy Rajesh Pilot.

The Punjab Cell used to be active during militancy in the state, between 1988 and 1992. It continues to be in existence, although militancy in Punjab is on the decline.

Even though the Ayodhya Cell was constituted a few months before the demolition of the Babri Masjid, its reports did not prevent the destruction of the mosque. The home ministry has not disbanded the Ayodhya Cell, but it has been non-functional in recent years.

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