Two more Keralites hired by Lashker killed in J&K

Jammu and Kashmir Police and Central security agencies have launched a probe to unravel the designs of Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba of recruiting people from various parts of the country especially Kerala as police and army shot dead another two militants hailing from Kerala in Lolab valley of North Kashmir.

Sources in the state Home Department said that three more militants including two hailing from Malappuram district in Northern Kerala, where the Calicut airport is located, were killed.

Now both the state police and their counterparts in Kerala were working to ascertain their actual identity as the documents recovered from them about their identity could be misleading.

The fresh batch of three militants were killed in Sogam area of Lolab valley in North Kashmir where the Special operations Group and Nine Para of the Army is conducting the operation against militants holed up to exfiltrate in the dense jungles.

According to the sources, there was an intelligence report to suggest that Lashker commander Abdullah had been on a recruitment spree under instructions from Pakistan's ISI and Kerala's Malappuram district was chosen as one of the targets in South India.

The sources said the documents recovered from the killed militants include a diagram and method to assemble Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Malayalam language.

Based on the inputs, police and central security agencies had been conducting raids at various places in Kerala and the bordering areas between Kerala and Karnataka, the sources said.

Infiltration from PoK

Central agencies had been monitoring certain leads which said a group of people hailing from Kerala along with Lashker-e-Taiba's support were trying to enter Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) through North Kashmir.

Earlier, two militants hailing from Kerala had been killed in the same area. One of them was carrying an election Identity card in the name of Shakeel Mohammed hailing from the same district.

However, on physical verification, the person was found at home, the sources said, adding the development was indicative of the fact that some one else was using identity cards to hide the identity.

Besides identity card, some religious writings written in Malayalam were also recovered from the deceased militants, the sources said.

The sources said the group was still scattered over the area and a hunt was on to nab others with maximum efforts to nab them alive to ascertain the exact ramifications of Lashker's network in Kerala.

LeT has been trying to make inroads into the country's hinterland and had sought recruits from various parts of the country. Police and Army were maintaining a studied silence over this encounter officially but they acknowledged that this development was alarming.

The encounter comes close on the heels of intelligence reports suggesting that the banned SIMI had begun preparing itself for "participation" in the Indian Mujahideen offensive in December 2007 when nearly 40 of its members participated in a militant training camp held near Aluva, Kerala.

Earlier in February this year, Mohammed Yahya Kammukutty, 31, hailing from Mukkom in Kozhikode district of Kerala, was arrested as part of a continuing probe into a SIMI network in Karnataka that has already lead to the arrest of six youths from northern Karnataka, including four medical students.