Govt unaware of presence of Islamic State module in Kerala: CM Pinarayi Vijayan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Categorically rejecting the police version about the presence of Islamic State’s (IS) module in the state, the government has said that no such presence of the outfit has come to its attention.
In a reply to questions by four UDF MLAs, including IUML leader M K Muneer, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in the assembly on August 4 that the presence of sleeper cells of IS has not come to government’s notice and that the police chief has not given any such report to the government.

On his last day in office, former state police chief Loknath Behera had said in an interview to television channels that the state is a recruiting ground for IS as the people in the state are educated and IS requires engineers and doctors. He further said the police were able to deal with it systematically after which it has come down.
Though the chief minister has gone into a complete denial, the state police have been working on making inroads into the alleged recruitment of youth from the state to the terror organization.
The threat to the state from IS was confirmed earlier by the government when it had asked all district collectors to take precautionary action anticipating acts of sabotage by the cells of the terror group in the state.
In a confidential letter dated December 16, 2017 from the then additional chief secretary (home and vigilance) Subrata Biswas, the collectors were instructed to take necessary precautionary and safety measures to counter the terror organisation’s plans for sabotage in the state.
The letter was issued on the basis of a confidential intelligence report and quoted the report to the government that said “an audio message was sent by Abdul Rasheed (who had joined IS from Kasaragod) to his group members, the contents of which are highly communally incriminating in nature. He exhorted ISIS followers to assassinate/destroy non-Muslims by choosing any methods, including poisoning drinking water, plying trucks over gathering of people like Thrissur Pooram, Kumbh Mela, by mass shooting, sabotage of trains etc”.
The letter further quoted the report that in the backdrop of the exhortation, the IS module of the state is likely to plan an acts of sabotage in the state.
The audio clip, allegedly leaked from a secret chat group of IS sympathisers, had instigated the followers to undertake a lone-wolf style attack against “Kafirs”.
Interestingly, when the matter came out in the public after Thrissur railway police issued a communique to railway authorities asking to ensure fool-proof precautions, the state police had downplayed the matter saying that the public should not fall prey to such messages and should desist from spreading them.