By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala leader of opposition Oommen Chandy Sunday said arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative T. Nazeer had reportedly come under the state police scanner twice but had been let off.
The former chief minister was criticising Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan for complaining that the state was not informed of Nazeer’s arrest.
Balakrishnan Saturday said the state government was not informed of the arrest of Nazeer and his accomplice at the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya early this week and called for the central government to improve intelligence sharing with the states.
Speaking to IANS, Chandy said this statement was “baffling” because reports indicated that Nazeer had been arrested – both times during the Left government’s tenure – but let off.
“It is strange that Balakrishnan is blaming the centre for arresting Nazeer and not sharing the information with the state government. According to reports twice, Nazeer had come into the Kerala police net – once he appeared in a court and on another occasion in 2007, police had rounded him up,” he said.
“Newspaper reports suggest that he was let off following pressure from the top,” said Chandy.
Nazeer and his accomplice, Shafaz, hail from Kannur district in the state and have been involved in a number of cases in the state, police say. Nazeer was allegedly involved in the 2005 terror attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, in which a retired Indian Institute of Technology professor M.C. Puri was killed.
“The statement of Balakrishnan blaming the centre that arrested Nazeer is a possible cover up because they did not do their job on two occasions. We are not interested in politicising this but we are certainly concerned about the security of the nation,” Chandy said.
A team of Kerala police officials is now in Bangalore where the two LeT suspects are now being kept and interrogated.
Nazeer has reportedly admitted that he was a member of the banned Islamic Sevak Sangh (ISS) and was later with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), both founded by Abdul Nazir Maudany.
Maudany is expected to be called up by the National Investigationg Agency (NIA) for questioning.
Meanwhile, a man, identified as Arif, was picked up by the police Friday from Kochi after it was found out that Nazeer reached Bangalore in a vehicle rented out by him.
Police are also on the look out for Arif’s friend Afsal.