Terror targets TN, Kerala

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Worried about possible terror links, Central intelligence agencies and the police in Kerala and Tamil Nadu are investigating the increased smuggling of ammonium nitrate into Ke­rala by trucks from Salem in Tamil Nadu. Over 300 tonnes of the deadly explosive were sei­zed from trucks over the last few months at different places in Kerala, acc­ording to police sources.

The seizures included two overloaded trucks each carrying about 20 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. “Two kilos of ammonium nitrate mixed with 300 ml of disel or kerosene can completely destroy our Central railway station here”, a senior intelligence officer told DC, requesting anonymity. “We are worried about the increase in this traffic. We are even more worried about the trucks that mig­ht have slipped past us”.

Ammonium nitrate, NH3NO3, a white crystalline chemical compound, is used as fertiliser by the farmers and as an explosive to blast the rock in granite quarries and digging wells. But what worries the police is that the compound mixed with kerosene/diesel becomes deadly slurry used by terrorists. “Several terror strikes have used amm­onium nitrate, including the horrible German Bakery blast in Pune in 2010. We are probing all angles”, another worried officer said. He admitted that a greater coordination is necessary between the police of the southern sta­tes and the Central agencies “because there seems to be an increase in this kind of activity in the south”.

Investigation by the DC team indicated that large quantities of the chemical compound arrived by sea from Africa and thereafter got transported by road through Pakistan-Gujarat-Andhra Pradesh before landing in Salem region of Tamil Nadu, where the local handlers engage trucks for the final haul into Kerala and other southern destinations. The truck drivers did not know the source from where the explosive was loaded into the vehicle, nor did they know the identity of the end-user. “The driver wou­ld be given huge amount of money to bribe the check-posts and police stations on his route. He would be told to leave the truck at a particular spot and walk aw­ay”, said an officer, ex­pr­essing dismay that the kin­gpins could not be identified in most of the seizures.

“The recent arrest of Ansari (suspected to be the local link of ISI operative in Colombo) at Tiruchy, the
unprecedented ferocity in the attack on the US consulate general in Chennai during the demonstrations against the American documentary denigrating Prop­het and this rise in ammonium nitrate movement into Kerala, are all worrying us. We are checking if there are any links”, he added.