Terror man Mani was Sufiya Madani’s aide: Police

Courtesy: Pioneer News Service | Kannur

The anti-terror squad of the Kerala Police has confirmed that Yusuf alias Mani from Tamil Nadu residing in Kannur district and arrested last week for terror connections was a close associate of Sufiya Madani, wife of PDP chairman Abdul Nasser Madani.

Mani, who had converted into Islam accepting the name of Yusuf as a first step of joining the terror platoon, was taken into custody from his wife’s house in Ayippuzha, Iritti in the eastern reaches of Kannur district as per information provided by terror recruiter Faizal.

According to the police, Mani of Marakkarkandi, Kannur, had earlier worked in the house and purdah shop of Sufiya Madani. During questioning for the past one week, Mani told the police that he had worked at the residence of Sufiya and her purdah shop in Ernakulam for seven and a half years.

Officials said they were viewing this information in the context of the allegations that some of the terror operative found during the current police operations had connections with Sufiya. There were also reports connecting Sufiya to the case relating to the burning of a Tamil Nadu bus in Kalamassery of Kochi on September 9, 2006.

The intention of the burning of the bus was said to be to put pressure on the Kerala and Tamil Nadu Governments to release Madani from the Coimbatore prison where he was lodged then in connection with the Coimbatore serial blasts which had targeted BJP leader LK Advani.

The police had already confirmed that several terror operatives in Kerala, including Abdul Raheem of Chettippadi, Parappanangadi, Malappuram, who was killed by security forces in Kashmir while trying to sneak into Pakistan early October, Omar Farooq, who had been missing from Chettippadi in suspicious circumstances and Faizal, one of the top recruiters of Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kerala were accused in the Kalamassery bus-burning case.

It had also been reported that some of these people had talked to Sufiya Madani in connection with the Kalamassery incident. The BJP in the State had been consistently alleging that Sufiya had a role in the burning of the bus.

The anti-terror squad had extended its investigations into Tamil Nadu as Yusfuf alias Mani had served term in prison there in connection with a case. Sleuths from the Central Intelligence Bureau also interrogated Mani, who had been working at a meat shop in Kannur town. He had reached Kerala several years ago from Anamala, Pollachi, Tamil Nadu.

The terror recruiters for LeT in Kerala had reportedly converted into Islam dozens of young men from other religions as a first step to enroll them in the extremist groups based outside the State. Muhammad Yasin alias Vargehese Joseph, a smalltime goonda from Chakkarapparambu, Kochi, was one among at least 15 young men converted so by the terror operatives, the Kochi police had found out.

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