US EDITION
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Alert in Kerala as cops seize bombs

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

The Kerala police are on the alert following the seizure of several bags of explosives near the Pazhavangadi railway station in Kannur district on Sunday. The explosives were reportedly hurled from the Cochin-Kurla Express.

Additional police forces have been deployed in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode -- especially at airports, railway stations and bus stands -- in view of the seizure.

Official sources said that all the police commissioners and district superintendents of police have been directed to maintain 'maximum vigil'.

The Kerala government has taken a serious view of the incident as the bags had a map in which Kerala was specifically marked.

The Kerala director general of police has instructed the district superintendents to take steps to examine all trains entering the state. The state police are in touch with their counterparts in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

In a related incident, on Monday the office of the Thiruvananthapuram police commissioner received a phone call that a bomb was planted there. However, a thorough search by the bomb squad proved it to be a hoax.

Railway officials at Thiruvananthapuram said instructions have been given to the Railway Protection Force to check the luggage of passengers at all railway stations.

Meanwhile, the crime branch officials, who are investigating the case, are perplexed over the lack of communication between the local police and railway officials. Lack of timely action on the part of the railway and police officials has led to the escape of the culprits.

It took nearly three hours for the police to reach the spot -- at Chembalikkundu near Pazhavangadi -- where the bags had been thrown.

Sources said railway officials did not even search the compartment from where the bags had been thrown.

The railway officials and police in Kannur and Kasargod had been alerted about the explosives by the station master of Kanhangad station after a passenger informed him of the same.

Though the investigators have confirmed that the explosives had been despatched from Tamil Nadu, they are yet to get any clue about its possible destination.

Investigating officials are looking into a possible conspiracy by some fundamentalist outfits to repeat the Coimbatore serial blasts in Mangalore, which Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchandi Advani is scheduled to visit tomorrow.

Kerala has been witnessing a spurt of fundamentalist activities for some time now.

Communist Party of India-Marxist state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan had said that the National Democratic Front is a fundamentalist outfit having links with some foreign elements.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has also been saying this for a long time. It has been demanding a white paper on fundamentalist activities in the state for the past 10 years.

EARLIER REPORT:

The jihad within

Tell us what you think of this report