After Hand Chop ; Islamic Court in Kerala implement Leg Chop

Leg-chopping: Cops suspect Islamic court role
PNS- KOCHI

The Kerala Police have got indications that Islamic courts could be existing in Kerala which, according to security experts who participated in a recent NIA conference, has emerged as the fountainhead of Islamist terror in the country.

In the remand report submitted in the First Class Judicial Magistrate court in Paravur near Kochi after the arrest of the first accused in the case pertaining to a leg-chopping incident on August 7, the police said the perpetrators, belonging to Islamist Popular Front of India (PFI), were people who wanted the reign of Islamic laws above the Indian Constitution.

The report was submitted in the court in connection with the remand of Shihab, PFI’s Paravur area secretary, who was first accused in the case relating to the heinous attack on hotelier Nasser Vaniyakkad on the morning of August 7. In a Taliban-model attack, the assailants hacked Nasser in the leg several times when he was returning home after performing Namaz at a mosque.

According to the police, the PFI activists involved in the attack on Nasser are people who would do anything for establishing supremacy of Islamic law. The accused believe in physically eliminating anybody opposed to their Islamist programmes. Shihab, who along with his brother Ayub had blocked Nasser to attack him, was arrested from Thrissur on August 11.

The first hints of the possible existence of Taliban-model Islamic courts had come out after the heinous attack on TJ Joseph, a college professor whose right hand was chopped off allegedly by PFI activists at Muvattupuzha as an act of revenge for preparing a test paper for students in which a question blasphemed Prophet Muhammad.

Reports then had said that the “Islamic courts” in different locations in Kerala used to settle property and family disputes. However, then Home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had on July 27, 2010 said that religious heads used to involve in dispute-settling but there was no information on the existence of Taliban-model courts in the State.

The Islamists attempted to murder Nasser, a member of the local mosque committee, for campaigning against the organization and its methods leading to its loss of dominance in the mosque panel eight months ago. According to Nasser, he was attacked by a gang of seven masked men who had come on motorbikes.

The police have found that the PFI operatives had hatched a conspiracy to murder Nasser. Five persons have already been arrested in the case in which there are a total of 19 accused. According to the police, all those arrested so far are people with active in the Popular Front.

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