Madani unlikely to get Kerala help

Kerala Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan of the Congress on Sunday said that the State Government did not intend to intervene in the issue of detention of Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Madani, an accused in the Bangalore blasts case, at a prison in the Karnataka capital.

Speaking at a meet-the-Press programme in Kottayam, Thiruvanchoor, whom Chief Minister Oommen Chandy made Home Minister in a Portfolio-shuffle last week, said that the State Government had limitations in intervening in the matter as it concerned a law and order problem of the Karnataka State.

Madani, chairman of Islamist party PDP, has been lodged at the Parappana Agrahara Prison outside Bangalore city since his arrest on August 17, 2010 from his operational headquarters Anvarssery near Sasthamkotta in Kollam district as 31st accused in the Bangalore serial blasts of 2008 in which LeT commander Thadiyantavide Nazeer is prime accused.

“There are several limitations for the State Government in the Federal system. Madani’s case is related to matters specific to Karnataka and he has been imprisoned in that State. We are not planning to interfere in that. We could have considered the matter if it was related to Kerala,” Thiruvanchoor said.

The Congress, which is heading the UDF Government, had joined hands with the CPI(M)-led LDF to unanimously pass a resolution in the Kerala Assembly on March 16, 2006 seeking Madani’s release on “humanitarian grounds” from the Coimbatore prison where he was detained for his alleged role in the 1998 serial blasts in that city.