Thiruvananthapuram, 14 June(HS): In October 2012, the CISF commandoes who were in charge of the Chennai International Airport had taken into custody two youths from Kerala for their dubious behaviour.

The youths, P. M. Manzoor and Amir Taha, who had valid business class tickets from Chennai to New Delhi, were detained at Chennai airport following their suspicious behaviour on the Indian Airlines Dreamliner aircraft. The duo had spent Rs 72,000 for their business class tickets. “They purchased the tickets from the airline's counter with a debit card. Minutes before the aircraft was to take off, both of them wanted to alight at Chennai on some pretext which was found to be a hoax later,” a spokesman of the Indian Airlines had told media persons and further stated that both the passengers would not get any reimbursements since they had already boarded the flight.

The spokesman disclosed that the crew got suspicious of their behavior inside the aircraft as they took a number of pictures of the interior of the aircraft from all possible angles. “This is something abnormal,” the spokesman had said.

A senior intelligence official in Chennai had said that Thaha is an activist of the National Development Front, an Islamic extremist organisation while Manzoor is a student of Al Ameen College, an institution with connections to various Islamic fundamentalist organisations.

The intelligence official said Manzoor and Thaha disclosed during the interrogation that they boarded the aircraft to see the Boeing Dreamliner, the latest addition to the fleet of the Indian Airlines.

“The whole issue is shrouded in mystery. Why should they spend this much money just to get into the aircraft and take pictures of the interior,” said a senior pilot with a major private liner. He said the pictures could have been taken with an eye to mastermind some kind of subversion activities in mind. “I feel they could be scheming for a hijack and the entire operation seems like a reconnaissance mission,” he said. They were in custody for two days and the police set them free reportedly at the instance of some political heavyweights from Kerala.Taha is an activist of the dreaded National Development Front, an Islamic militant organisation. In December 2012, Taha (32) was again detained by the Chennai Police for breaking the security cordon around the then finance minister P Chidambaram at the airport. But after questioning him for some hours, Taha was let off. The story featuring Taha and Manzoor ended there. New controversies erupted as Taha and his friends were relegated to the backburners.

Early this year, two persons were arrested by Kerala Police for putting a telephone post on railway tracks near Kollam. The accused who were arrested based on CCTV footage told the police that they put the telephone post on the tracks to get the cast iron part broken by the speeding train so that the duo could sell the same as scrap. But the police is yet to zero in on why the youths put two posts in two different positions. Yet another attempt was reported from Thrissur in which a Tamil-speaking person was arrested for keeping heavy metal block on railway tracks. The police are yet to find out the possibilities of these incidents being acts of subversion and they term the same as work of anti-social elements and drunkards.

The two shipwrecks off the Kerala coast in as many weeks too are incidents which require serious probe. These are not incidents that are confined to Kerala. There were eight or nine attempts in Uttar Pradesh to derail trains but the passengers had providential escapes.

These should be read together with what the Army commanders in Pakistan had told their Prime Ministers and Military Chiefs about the necessity to keep India bleeding forever. Late B Raman, former additional secretary in RAW has quoted what the ISI, Pakistan’s espionage agency telling the Government that “if the Pakistan Army keeps the Indian security forces bleeding, political and public opinion in India would ultimately realis the futility of holding on to the State”. (A Terrorist State as a Frontline Ally- Lancer Publishers).

Raman has also reproduced what General Pervez Musharraf told the foreign journalists based in Karachi in 1999 that even a bilaterally negotiated solution to the Kashmir issue might not normalize relations with India since Pakistan would continue to be a thorn in India’s side by frustrating its hegemonistic ambitions and this would make India continue with its policy of weakening Pakistan.

The question being asked in aviation circles in the country is how come ground handling works of international airports in India were presented on a platter to companies from Turkey, a nation with inherent enmity towards India. How many Turks were involved in the maintenance and service of the ill-fated Air India aircraft? It was Turkey which played a significant role in the 1921 Moplah Rebellion which was nothing other than genocide of Hindus in Malabar. Have we forgotten the Khilafat Movement which was supported to the hilt by the Father of the Nation?

Hindusthan Samachar / Manohar Yadavatti