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Kerala agencies digging for more information

Biju Govind

Kozhikode: The State and Central intelligence agencies have launched efforts to gather more information here about Yahya Kammukutty, arrested on charges of suspected terrorist links in Bangalore.

Yahya Kammukutty, 30, who passed out from the National Institute of Technology (Calicut), formerly Regional Engineering College, in 1996 is a native of Mukkom in the district.

North Zone Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Kundan Singh Jangpangi told The Hindu on Friday that the Karnataka police were yet to contact him regarding the arrest.

The NIT-C Director Ginjala Rama Chandra Reddy said the police were yet to contact him. The administrative staff was checking the records to find out whether the accused studied at the institute or not, he said.

Little is known about his activities here as he has been residing in Bangalore for the past eight years.

Sleuths attached to the intelligence wing interrogated his father Beerankutty at Mukkom. He told the officers that he visited Bangalore recently.

Police are investigating whether Yahya had links with any organisation in north Kerala. Mukkom and adjoining areas such as Areekkode and Kondotty are suspected hotbeds of extremist activities.

It is also not known whether he was a sympathiser of SIMI after the Centre put under the scanner several Muslim organisations in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The arrest of Yahya has reinforced suspicion that religiously motivated terrorism in on the rise in north Kerala.

Several organisations that had cropped up after the ban on SIMI are now concentrating on building support on the campuses.

The State police have sounded an alert against the growing influence of some nascent organisations attached to fundamentalist outfits on the campuses.

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