Kerala Taliban aims to create anarchy – NIA

Prof attack: NIA files FIR
PNS | Kochi

The NIA on Friday filed the first information report on the Taliban-model attack on college professor TJ Joseph by Islamists in the Special CBI Court (designated NIA court) in Kochi as part of the preparatory legal procedures for launching a re-investigation into the case which was first probed by the Kerala Police. As per the FIR, there were a total of 54 accused in the case.

A special investigation team of the Kerala Police had filed the chargesheet in the case on January 14 naming 54 persons as accused. In this context, the NIA had to register the case again to reinvestigate it. The agency is expected to submit the application for permission for reinvestigation in the court in a day or two.

The police investigators had found that the accused had dubious overseas connections and the Islamist outfit, Popular Front of India, to which they belonged, had suspicious sources of funds. The Union Home Ministry had instructed the NIA to take over the case on an appeal from the Kerala Government as the State police were not competent to go into such aspects.

Though the Kerala Police had found 54 as accused, their chargesheet was only against 27, all of whom were charged with anti-national activities, criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly for illegal activities, incitement of religious hatred and other offences.

It had said that the activists of the Popular Front of India and its political wing SDPI, responsible for the attack on the professor, had indulged in extremist activities with the intention of creating anarchy by destroying the peace prevailing in the society. The chargesheet had said that the Islamists had acted like terror gangs by attacking the professor.

Popular Front operatives had cut off the right hand of Prof Joseph of Church-run Newman College, Thodupuzha in a dawn attack at Muvattupuzha in Ernakulam district on July 4 last year for preparing a question paper that allegedly blasphemed Prophet Muhammad. The Catholic management of the college later suspended Prof Joseph for the same reason.

The first accused in the case, as per the chargesheet, was PFI activists Sawad of Kothamangalam, who had cut off the professor’s hand. The first seven accused named in the document were Islamists who had taken part directly in the attack on the professor when he was returning home from a church in Muvattupuzha after Sunday mass.

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