Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 8 (Inditop.com) Differences in the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) showed up again Tuesday when Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan expressed ignorance about sending Inspector General of Police Tomin J. Thachenkeri to Bangalore to question two arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) activists.
Speaking to reporters here, Achuthanandan said that the government did not send Thachenkeri to Bangalore.
When asked who had then sent the official to Bangalore, the chief minister shot back, “You can enquire and find out”, and left in a hurry.
His statement came at a time when Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was holding a press conference at his office here to reply to criticism raised both by the Congress-led opposition and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that Thachenkeri was sent to Bangalore to thwart the investigation. The police official is a known sympathizer of the Pinarayi Vijayan faction, that is opposed to Achuthanandan.
Reacting to Achuthanandan’s remark, Balakrishnan said the chief minister may have meant that the cabinet would not have come to know about the development.
“Thachenkeri was sent by the home department and the government or the cabinet need not be aware of this. Quick action is what is needed and we did act swiftly by sending Thachenkeri,” said Balakrishnan.
T. Nazeer, identified as the south Indian chief of LeT, and his accomplice Shafaz, hail from Kannur district. They were picked up by sleuths from the Meghalaya border last week.
Nazeer was allegedly involved in the 2008 Bangalore bomb blasts. The planning for the terror attack was allegedly done in Kerala. He is also involved in eight cases in the state.
Balakrishnan belongs to the faction headed by CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
The differences of opinion have broken out at a time when investigations have revealed that Nazeer was a member of the banned Islamic Sevak Sangh (ISS) and was later with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), both founded by Abdul Nazir Maudany.
Maudany, who was let off in the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blast case after spending more than nine years as an under-trial in the Coimbatore jail, was moving close to the Vijayan faction, much against the wishes of Achuthanandan. The chief minister had refused to share an election campaign platform with Maudany in the May 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
