The Hindu : National : E-mail threat more than a "mischief"

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Sunday, Dec 18, 2005

National

National

E-mail threat more than a "mischief"

Staff Reporter

Specific leads pursued to get at the "self-styled" sympathiser of Osama

MADURAI: The e-mail threat to blow up Parliament and United States consulates in the country, sent from a browsing centre at Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, has raised suspicions of like-minded extremist elements "regrouping" in the State.

Though no arrest has been made as yet senior police officials said they were pursuing specific leads that might help get at the "self-styled" sympathiser of Osama bin-Laden. While the owner of the browsing centre at Murugankurichi, who was interrogated by the police, could not provide much information on the identity of the suspect, investigators are trying to correlate the threat to earlier instances.

Though the appearance of intimidating posters, leaflets and letters from banned fundamentalist organisations emanating from this part of the State are not uncommon, this is the second e-mail threat in three years.

On November 11, 2002, a prominent hospital in Madurai received an e-mail from a self-styled Al-Mujahideen operative, Arshad Hussain, who warned of "bomb blasts" and challenged the police and the Government of India to stop "bloodshed" if they could. Intelligence sources said the needle of suspicion in the latest threat to Parliament pointed to some members of the clandestine "Muslim Defence Force (MDF)," basically formed to "train youth in the use of arms, explosives and other expertise to organise attacks on enemies of Islam in case of necessity." Storming operations are likely in some parts of southern districts in the wake of the e-mail threat. Intelligence sleuths and police officials would only say that the e-mail threat was more than a "mischief" and needed to be thoroughly probed.

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