The sleepy town of Puttur in Chittoor district woke up to the sound of gunfire on Saturday as the Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh Police carried out a joint operation, which finally after 12 long hours led to the arrest of two key Islamic terrorists suspected to be involved in killing of BJP and Sangh leaders from South India and planting a pipe bomb in 2011 on the route through which BJP leader lK Advani was to travel in Madurai.
The arrested accused Panna Ismail and Bilal Malik were not only wanted in the murders of Tamil Nadu BJP secretary Auditor Ramesh at Salem and Hindu Front leader Vellaiyappan in Vellore but also around a dozen-odd other cases. According to the Tamil Nadu Police, Ismail and Bilal belong to a fundamentalist organisation Al-Ummah.
A Police Inspector was severely injured in the incident and Ismail suffered bullet injuries, police said. The policeman was being treated at a private hospital in Chennai while Ismail has been admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Government Hospital, where a three-tier security has been accorded. A gun and some explosives were also recovered from a house in the area, police said. The arrests came after another arrested Islamist Fakruddin spilled the beans on his cohorts.
The arrest of the three key suspects comes days ahead of BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to Chennai on October 18. Fakruddin was arrested on Friday evening and is touted as Tamil Nadu Police’s most wanted accused. He was on the run for the past 12 years and was arrested for his alleged role in the bomb blast at Karnataka BJP headquarters in April this year. The trio was allegedly involved in the foiled bid to target Advani.
According to K Ramanujam, DGP Tamil Nadu, one of the inspectors from Chennai was injured when the terrorists holed up inside a house in Puttur opened fire at them.Based on the leads from Fakruddin, the Tamil Nadu Police laid a siege around the house at Medara Veedhi area near Puttur railway station in the wee hours on Saturday. Police suspect that at least two others including a fourth suspect Abu Backer Siddique managed to escape their dragnet.
The sleuths are interrogating Fakruddin on his latest terror mission as the agencies suspect that he could have a larger design as Brahmotsav at Tirupati-Tirumala shirnes are on and a huge procession was scheduled for Friday. Islamic zealots have killed at least six people belonging to the Sangh Parivar in the last six months.
In Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh DGP B Prasad Rao told reporters that a team of 30 commandos of anti-terrorist Octopus force was also sent to the scene after receiving the report of an encounter. Rao’s deputy VSK Kaumudi said, “In all six people were taken into custody during the commando operation in Puttur. They include three children and a woman.”
Posing as beedi workers, four persons had taken the house on rent a couple of months ago. The police was now questioning the house owner and others in this regard, local residents said. TN police say that Al Ummah was also involved in conspiracy to attack senior BJP leader lK Advani in Madurai in 2011 and attack on RSS office in Bangalore.
What has raised the heckles of the police and intelligence officials in Andhra Pradesh is that the suspected terrorist selected a town like Puttur to hide which was hardly 35 km away from Tirupati-Tirumala, the famous abode of Sri Venkateshwara temple. During the course of investigations into the killings of BJP and Sangh leaders, the Tamil Nadu Police recently seized 17 kg of explosives and 141 electric detonators from a house in Melapalayam in Tirunelveli in south Tamil Nadu and arrested Tasim, Katta Shahul, Kutty alias Noorul Hameed, Samsu and Bismi.