AIADMK, DMK united on issue of militant activity

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

It could not have been timed better for the critics of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and his 10-month-old Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government. Yet, when he briefed the state assembly about the huge haul of explosives seized in a Madras suburb on Tuesday, only concern was expressed, not criticism.

Even the usually aggressive All-India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam representative only cautioned the government about the increasing number of terrorists infiltrating into the state. They all saw that the threat to the peace in the state was real.

Interrogation of the two arrested members of the fundamentalist organisation Al-Uma showed they were planning bomb blasts in the city similar to the ones in Bombay in March 1993. Police sources said the explosives were already packed and that a ‘tiffin-carrier bomb’ in the haul alone could have destroyed a 10-storeyed building.

Agents of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence has been targetting Tamil Nadu and other southern states for some time, after the mosque at Ayodhya was demolished on December 6. 1992, the return of normalcy to Punjab and especially following the elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Though fundamentalism has taken its toll in the state in recent years, the violence has mostly been dismissed as communal clashes. This is the first time that external factors have been proved to exist.

Bomb blasts in Madras could have derailed New Delhi’s proposed talks with Islamabad later this month, implying forces out to thwart the peace process.

For his part, Karunanidhi avoided petty politics and even took leaders of other political parties with him while inspecting the seized explosives. The government also clarified that the explosives seized were similar those used in the blast at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Munnani offices in Madras a few years ago, despite the DMK’s traditional opposition to the brahmins the Hindutva forces represent. The DMK had even taken a pro-Islamic tilt during the communal clashes following the killing of Palani Baba, a Muslim fundamentalist leader, in January.

The state government is worried, especially since another cache of explosives was seized on the Rajasthan border around the same time on Tuesday.

For Karunanidhi, such militant activity in his state is worrying. His party suffered a mammoth defeat in 1991 after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, his government then being accused of being sympathetic to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The DMK’s electoral victory last year owes more to the unpopularity of the previous Jayalalitha government than Karunanidhi’s acumen.

Though Karunanidhi’s reputation as an LTTE supporter has nearly been forgotten, the issue was brought up again before the Jain Commission which is looking into the possibility of a conspiracy in Rajiv Gandhi assassination. The DMK’s anti-Hindu reputation, not helped by the enforcement of law and order during the annual Ganesh Chaturthi, has not helped.

But, for now, the ruling party and the Opposition are working together to fight the threat to the country rather than squabble among themselves.