TN Police rules out fundamentalists' link with SIMI, LeT

Chennai, Jul 31 (UNI) There was no link between the fundamentalists arrested in connection with the recent terror module that planned to trigger bomb blasts in Tirunelveli and Chennai city and the banned terrorist outfits like Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Lakshar-e-Toiba(LeT), the Tamil Nadu police said today.

Addressing a press conference here, state DGP K P Jain, ADGP (Law and Order) K VIjayakumar and IG Intelligence M S Jaffar Sait said interrogations with the Muslim fundamentalists, who were arrested on June 27 and 28 at Tiruneveli and Chennai city, revealed that they had no links with the terrorist outfits.

Mr Sait said the police were also probing into the angle of whether any sleeper cells of SIMI and LeT were operating in the state.

Asked whether there was any presence of sleeper cells of these terror outfits, Mr Sait said ''we are investigating in that angle.

As of now there is no information on presence of sleeper cells of these organisations.

It may be recalled that police have busted a terror module with the arrest of Abdul Gaffoor at Pettai in Tirunelveli on Sunday for manufacturing explosives and attempting to carry it to Chennai to plant them.

His confession led to the arrest of three others, Anwar Basha, Heera alias Syed Kasim, Abdul Khader, and the surrender of another fundamentalist Abutahir.

The interrogation of the fundamentalists also brought to light the role of Ali Abdullah, trained in Pakistan for manufacturing Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), who had hatched the diabolic plot to trigger 1998 type serial blasts in Chennai and Tirunelveli on Independence Day.

A fresh case of conspiracy was slapped and Abdullah was formally arrested at Puzhal Central Prison yesterday. He was taken into police custody today for further investigations.

Mr Vijayakumar, who led the STF in ending the menace of forest brigand Veerappan a couple of years ago, said the STF was coordinating with the forest department to tackle maoist menace in the state.

''We are coordinating with the forest department in this regard and anti-poaching watchers are also being trained to look out for suspicious elements in the forest areas, the preferred hideouts for the naxals,'' he added.

Mr Vijayakumar said 200 forest personnel were given training in this regard and another 300 personnel would be trained.

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