An important aspect of the arrests is that the terrorists have stopped operating from the safety of deep jungles in the State as in the past. They have become bold enough to go about their sinister job from urban-centric districts like Ernakulam. This must make the authorities sit up and think seriously over the ramifications of the new phenomenon.

Equally significant is the fact that the arrests were effected by the National Investigation Agency(NIA), keeping the Kerala Police completely in the dark till the very last moment. The State police realized that the arrested activists belonged to the dreaded Al Qaeda only on the day of the arrests.

Needless to say, this constitutes a severe snub to the Kerala Police, which is otherwise known for its efficiency. That the Police intelligence failed to zero in on the presence of the Al Qaeda activists amounts to a strong indictment of its performance. The State intelligence will take a long time to live down the serious slip-up on its part.

The NIA’s refusal to take the Kerala Police into confidence is self-explanatory: it had no trust in the ability of the State police to keep the sensitive mission a top secret. It would have been better had the NIA coordinated its efforts with the Kerala Police. That it did not must induce serious self-introspection among the State Police force.

The NIA has also hinted at the fact that the arrests are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. More arrests are likely as some of the supporters of the arrested trio seem to have slipped into other states like Thiruvananthapuram.

That the Al Qaeda activists have been able to infiltrate the concentration of guest workers in the State and operate undetected till the NIA intervened is, to say the least, shocking. The State administration and the police will have to do a lot of explaining in this regard. The latest development has also proved, if proof were needed, that successive state governments have failed to gather information about the arrival, in large numbers, of migrant workers from other States, especially from Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.

It will also lend further credence to the oft-repeated allegations made by rightwing parties like the BJP that successive governments – headed by both the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front(LDF) and the Congress-headed United Democratic Front(UDF) – have been soft on the growth of terrorism in the State. It is also a fact that both the principal political fronts in the state have, at some time or the other, aligned themselves with extremist outfits operating in the state for short-term political and electoral gains.

It is, therefore, time for the Police to shed its inertia and get its act together. It must go about the job of collecting details of the migrant workers’ influx into the state with greater efficiency and determination than is the case at present.

The migrant workers, for example, are supposed to register themselves with the nearest police station on arrival. That only one out of the three arrested men had done so speaks for the shoddy state of affairs.

The arrests must prompt questions about the serious turn events have taken on the terrorist front. The State Government must swing into action without further loss of time. It can no more afford to allow itself to be lulled into a false sense of complacency. The consequences of indifference to the growing presence of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers in the State are too dreadful to contemplate. In a hopeful sign, the Pinarayi Government has also started showing signs of having woken up to the grim reality. (IPA Service)