Plan was to kill professor: Conspirator

KK Ali, one of the three conspirators behind the Taliban-model Islamist attack on Prof TJ Joseph, has said that the original plan was to murder him for blaspheming Prophet Muhammad through a question paper he prepared. Ali, who had arranged the vehicle used by the assailants, was arrested on Monday morning from Pollachi, Tamil Nadu.

According to the remand report by the police in Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Muvattupuzha, the Muvattupuzha division of the Popular Front of India had planned to kill Joseph. Ali was the secretary of the Muvattupuzha division of the Islamist organization.

Ali told the police that they had planned to kill the professor to send out a message that nobody should make a blasphemy attempt like the one he had made through an entry in the question paper he prepared. The police said Ali had admitted in the interrogation that they had gone to the professor’s house with this intention but they failed in carrying out the attack as he was not home.

A second attempt was made later to torch the entire house when Prof Joseph was in but this time also they could not succeed as some other people were present in the house. It was after this the actual attack on the professor took place at Muvattupuzha on the morning of July 4 when he was returning from a local church after Sunday Mass with his mother Aliamma and sister Stella, the police said.

They said Popular Front activist KM Nasser was the chief conspirator and mastermind behind the attack on the professor but Ali and Yunus, already arrested, were co-conspirators. Ali admitted to the police that Nasser had told him about the plan to attack the professor and that the conspiracy was hatched at tourist bungalow in Muvattupuzha.

Also, it was Nasser who had given him the money for buying the vehicle from one Lawrence of Thrissur, Ali told the police. Ali was one of the three accused against whom the police had issued lookout notices first. With his arrest, the total number of accused arrested in the case rose to 22.

Meanwhile, the Kerala High Court deferred a petition seeking a ban on the Popular Front to Thursday. The petition was deferred to give time for the Government to inform its stand on the plea.

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