Extremists involved in email-scandal: Police

The scandal relating to the leakage of reports on the police Intelligence’s alleged surveillance on the email accounts of 258 Muslim personalities and institutions and ten others had extremist connection, the Kerala Police’s special Crime Branch team probing the case told a Thiruvananthapuram court on Wednesday.

While opposing the bail plea of first accused Biju Salim, a sub-inspector at the police’s High-Tech Inquiry Cell, now under suspension, the police filed a report in the Thiruvananthapuram District and Session Court saying that extremists could have played a role in the scandal and certain religious organizations also were involved in this.

However, the police did not reveal the identities of the religious organizations. Two persons had already been arrested and six more persons were yet to be held, the police report said. The team has come to the conclusion that certain mediamen also had been involved in the scandal. They have sought legal opinion on the possibilities of taking action against the newsmen.

The police opposed Biju Salim’s bail plea on the ground that he could contact the other accused and the religious organizations if released which could affect the investigations negatively. The court would take a decision on the bail application on Thursday.

The police also opposed the bail plea of the second accused, PA Dastager, a homeopath who had been charged with helping Biju Salim to organize a medical certificate which he had used to conceal his alleged participation in a meeting of a religious outfit in Kozhikode.

The police Intelligence’s move to monitor 258 email accounts belonging to Muslims became a huge controversy following reports on this appeared in Madhyamam weekly run by the Kerala chapter of the Jama’at-e-Islami. The Government had accused Madhyamam of being selective in divulging the list of the targeted email accounts.

As per the Madhyamam report, A Hemachandran, then ADGP (Intelligence), had on November 3, 2011 instructed the Hi-Tech Crime Inquiry Cell, a wing of the Kerala Police specializing in tracking of digital and electronic communications, to monitor the emails of 258 Muslims and ten others.

The basis of the report was a letter reportedly written by a Superintendent of Police to email service providers asking them for the account details of several personalities and institutions to check for their alleged SIMI connections.