Prof attack: Fund-collection abroad to help accused Islamists

The Kerala Police have reportedly learned that Islamists have formed committees abroad, especially in the Gulf, for assisting the accused in the case of the attack against college professor TJ Joseph even as the NIA has informed the Central Government of its readiness to investigate the attack.

According to sources, the police have received detailed information regarding extensive collection of money by Islamists in the Gulf to help the accused in the legal cases relating to the attack and their family members. It is said that the Popular Front of India, to which all the accused in the case belong, itself is behind the money-collection campaign abroad.

According to reports, the funds collection for assisting the Popular Front activists accused in the case is being carried out by an outfit called the NDF Fraternity Forum based in Doha, Qatar. NDF (National Development Front) is the erstwhile avatar of the Popular Front of India.

Sources say that the president of the forum is one Subahan, thought to be a native of the State of Karnataka. But they also think that Subahan could be a Malayalee hailing from Perumbilavu in central Kerala. Investigators had earlier received information that one Subahan from Perumbilavu had entered Karnataka in suspicious circumstances, it is said.

Investigators are now examining whether the president of the same forum is this Subahan, who is said to have had links with the Popular Front. The attention of the Kerala Police had turned towards the foreign connection after they got information regarding the supporters of the Popular Front in Karnataka.

The NDF, which had termed itself as an Islamic resistance organization, had transformed into Popular Front of India in 2007 after its merger with the outfits, Karnataka Forum for Dignity and Tamil Nadu’s Manitha Neethi Pasarai.

According to sources, the police have information that the pro-Popular Front forums in the Gulf have observed that the attack on the professor should have been carried out just when the issue of the blasphemous question paper that Prof Joseph prepared was a raging controversy in Kerala.

The Gulf-based pro-Islamist forums are of the opinion that the delay in carrying out the attack was the reason for the buildup of negative sentiment towards the Popular Front. Sources said that the Islamist relief committees abroad were propagating this theory extensively.

The controversy over Prof Joseph’s preparation of a question paper that blasphemed Prophet Muhammad had broken out by March-end and he was suspended on April 1 for this. The Islamists had through a Taliban-model attack cut off his right hand at Muvattupuzha on July 4.

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