Malappuram district in north Kerala is called 'mini Pakistan'.

The district with the largest Muslim population in the country, Malappuram is home to a number of extremists and fundamentalist groups.

Many Muslim families in Malappuram have their relatives in Pakistan, who often come visiting. The government cannot say how many Pakistanis are overstaying or have disappeared after reaching Malappuram. Central intelligence agencies are always on the lookout for elusive Pakistani nationals in Malappuram.

The police suspect that the Pakistanis who come visiting to Malappuram are often used by the ISI to set up extremist groups, and distribute fake currencies.

However, innocents are often caught in the crossfire between the extremists, ISI agents and religious rabble-rousers in the district. K P Muhammed Bashir is one such. He was arrested four years ago. Last year, he was let off after the police failed to prove the cases against him.

Bashir was an Urdu teacher at a madrassa in Malappuram. He frequented similar Muslim schools across Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. He worked as an active member of the Student Islamic Movement of India and spread the Islamic way of life. His forays into the neighbouring states made the Kerala police suspicious.

They asked the Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu police to follow Bashir's movements in their states. The Tamil Nadu police arrested him in 1996 from a madrassa on charges of aiding and abetting terrorism among Muslim students.

Bashir pleaded ignorance; his parents spent all their money on the release of their only son.

"The police and the government are harassing us in the name of ISI and terrorism. We are peaceful people. Because I belong to Malappuram and am a learned teacher, the police suspect that I am involved with other international Islamic outfits," he says.

Bashir has now stopped teaching in madrassas. He is trying hard to get a visa to some Gulf country, so that he can earn enough for his six sisters and aged parents.

Syed Mohammad, who has published books on Muslim fundamentalism, says there have been several incidents of terrorism in the district perpetuated by the ISI. "For instance, when several cinema theatres were torched in the district in 1993 we all knew it was the handiwork of some local outfit with abundant help from Pakistan," he says.

Mohammad has joined hands with a number of social activists to convince the community that it is not the Quran that leads extremist groups. "The community is being misled by external forces like the National Democratic Front. We are here to stop them," he says.

Mohammad's colleague Ayed Mohammed Anakkayam heads the Yukthivada Sangham, a rationalist organisation that fights religious fundamentalists in Manjeri, the hub of Malappuram. The Sangham holds regular street-corner meetings to educate Muslims that external forces like the ISI foments minority communalism, religious fundamentalism and extremism.