E-Paper
Karnataka coastal districts on alert after intelligence agencies intercept satellite calls
A senior officer in charge of the intelligence in Karnataka confirmed that the state police had received inputs from central agencies regarding such calls.
Police have issued an alert along Karnataka’s coastal regions after central intelligence agencies recently intercepted satellite calls originating from three coastal districts, officials said.
Senior police officers said police are taking all precautions and the alert should not be a concern for the public.
A senior officer in charge of the intelligence in the state confirmed that the state police had received inputs from central agencies regarding such calls. “We can’t share more details about these calls, but this is not the first time such calls are reported in the state. Our teams are on the ground verifying these inputs. However, there is no imminent cause for concern,” said the officer.
Officers in the know of the developments said that inputs from the central agencies have been taken seriously since the “contents of these calls were of interest”.
On September 1, chief minister Basavaraj Bommai had said that police had received inputs about possible terrorist activity on the coasts of Kerala and Karnataka. He said the state administration is keeping a watch for any suspicious activity in the coastal and adjoining forest areas.
“I can’t discuss some issues openly, but I want to tell you that Karnataka police along with NIA is keeping a strict vigil on any anti-national activity in coastal and adjoining forest areas. NIA had also picked up a person who was involved in such activities. We have also issued a high alert in coastal areas,” said the chief minister.
It was then claimed by the police that a central Intelligence report had warned that terrorists could infiltrate from the coastal districts of the state. The fresh alert comes days after the chief minister’s statement.
So far, 15 Islamic State sympathisers have been arrested from Karnataka. The latest arrests were reported on August 11, when the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Zufri Jawhar Damudi from Karnataka’s Bhatkal town in connection with terror activities of a group propagating the violent ideology of the Islamic State (IS). A day before that NIA had arrested Ammar Abdul Rahman of Mangalore and Shankar Venkatesh Perumal of Bengaluru in connection with the case after conducting simultaneous searches in Jammu and Kashmir and Karnataka.
In October 2019, NIA had announced that the central agency had arrested 127 IS sympathisers from across India between 2014 and 2019. According to the NIA list at the time, a maximum of 33 people have been arrested from Tamil Nadu, followed by Uttar Pradesh (19), Kerala (17), Telangana (14), Maharashtra (12), and Karnataka (8).
Since 2019, as per the information listed on NIA’s website, three IS-related cases have been reported. The first case was reported on September 19, 2020, in which four men from Karnataka were arrested. The second case was reported on March 5, 2021, in which seven people from Kerala were arrested and the third case of arrests was reported after raids in September.
With these arrests, Kerala moved to the second spot in the list with 24 arrests while Karnataka jumped to the fourth with 15 arrests, followed by Telangana (14), as per the NIA information.
While answering a question regarding ‘reports of the presence of Islamic terrorists in southern states of India’, during the monsoon session in September 2020, the Union ministry of home affairs told parliament: “Some instances of individuals from different states, including the southern states, having joined Islamic State (IS) have come to the notice of Central and state security agencies.”
“Investigations by the NIA have revealed that IS is most active in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir,” read the MHA statement in Rajya Sabha.
B Dayananda, additional director general of police (Intelligence), Karnataka, said the numbers mentioned by the MHA are only pertaining to the cases registered by NIA. “As per the state government’s records, 30 people have been arrested for links with the Islamic State. So far the arrests have been made in connection with radicalisation and evidence of contact with members of the Islamic State,” he said.
