ASSEMBLY POLL '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS '98
ARCHIVES

Tamil Nadu under siege

N Sathiya Moorthyin Madras

The cop at the crossroad halts your vehicle with a wave of his hand. You are advised to park your vehicle in the side- street, and walk the last 200 yards.

And as you proceed as per directions, you cross a well-manned barricade that will let only one person at a time. And once inside, you feel less of piety, and tend to see even lesser of the deities.

There are cops, many of them women, all uniformed and unarmed, taking their own turns to say their prayers before the lord.

And as you go around the prakara, as tradition ordains, you find the rear entry, facing the temple-tank locked, possibly for the first time in your memory.

Lord Kapaleeswarar and his consort-goddess Karpagambikai in their famous temple at Mylapore in the heart of Madras are under siege -- and there are fewer devotees than usual this Sunday.

So are the other equally famous temples elsewhere in Tamil Nadu, be it the Meenakshi Amman temple at Madurai, Dandayuthapani temple at Palani, Bhagawathi Amman temple at the land's end of Kanyakumari, or the `Big Temple', Thanjavur.

It was on another `Black Sunday' of December 6 six years back that Hindu zealots brought down the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, hundreds of miles away in Uttar Pradesh.

Tamil Nadu, which was unusually peaceful, but for stray incidents, for which then chief minister J Jayalalitha claimed credit, has woken up late.

Today, it seems to be the 'battle ground' of fundamentalism and terrorism, if the 100,000 cops collected on the streets were any indication.

It's not just the temples that have got barricades and protection, after a minor blast occurred at the Madurai temple last year.

Every passenger entering every railway station in the state, big or small, had his baggage frisked, and informal 'reception committees' and 'send-off' parties prevented entry into platforms.

If the frisking part of it was a 'thankless' job for the policemen, with their sniffer dogs and metal-detectors, it was a better day for the passengers and porters.

''There was less of a noise and bother on the platforms, and the authorities should make the entry-bar permanent,'' said K Rajamanickam of Tiruchi, arriving at the Madras Egmore on Sunday morning.

For the porters, it meant there would be fewer relatives of the passengers to help them out with their baggage -- and that meant more money.

However, some of them did complain that the cops occasionally looked down on them with suspicion, especially while lugging huge packages.''But they were doing their duty, just as we were doing ours,'' said Durai, a coolie at the Madras Central.

It's not as if the railway stations and airports alone were the subject of police protection.

Every high-rise building, every monument of some importance, and almost every public building in the state, came under special security care.

So high was the pressure on the police force that the authorities had to hire the services of private security agencies, for routine entry-checks at government offices, including the state secretariat. All this, not without reason.

Ever since Muslim terrorists blasted bombs on three different trains leaving Madras on December 5 last -- killing over a dozen people in all -- the cops have been on high alert.

The Coimbatore blasts of February 14 this year, minutes before then BJP president Lal Kishenchand Advani was to address an election meeting, has only added to the tension in the air.

As may be recalled, at least 60 persons lost their lives in the serial blasts in the 'Cotton City' that day.

The police investigations into the Coimbatore blasts in particular led to the arrest of scores of Muslims, men and women, of all ages and background, and from villages and towns alike.

Equally surprising was the quantity of weapons and other explosive material recovered in these operations.

Combined with another seizure of 'tiffin-box bombs' and 'pipe bombs' from a Madras suburb hours before they were to be set off at select city centres, this meant, Islamic terrorists had a widespread organisation in the state than anticipated.

But all this, only after the Coimbatore riots of November 29 last year, where Muslims and their properties became the target of Hindu zealots and the local cops, when a traffic constable was killed by car-borne terrorists at a barricade.

That way, it was less of a revenge for the Babri Masjid demolition, and more for the Coimbatore riots in which at least 19 Muslims were killed.

Not knowing from where reports of a bomb blast would come in the state, top administration and police officials in the state capital spent a near-sleepless night.

Earlier on Saturday, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi held a high-level meeting, discussing the law and order situation. That way, nothing could have come as complete satisfaction for the government, when Sunday passed off peacefully, with no incidents reported from any part of the state.

The next day, on Sunday, the police arrested some 1,000 Muslims, proceeding from a mosque after noon prayers, to the chief minister's home, protesting the 'indiscriminate detention' of their brethren across the state.

Included in the list was Tamil film actor Mansur Ali Khan, who has been making half-hearted attempts at entering politics every now and then. Incidentally, most of his ilk stayed away from film shootings, thanks to unspecified and unreported terrorist threats.

The Thamizhaga Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, which spearheaded the aborted march to the chief minister's home, was not alone in politicising the police action.

Holidaying at Hyderabad, Jayalalitha issued a media statement, condemning the `indiscriminate arrests', which she said would hurt 'Muslim sentiments'.

Other political parties and leaders, however, would not be drawn into the controversy.

As the day wore on, and no incidents reported, the authorities patted themselves on the back. But they knew it was only one more dress rehearsal. The kind of dress rehearsal that they have come to carry out every now and then, the next time possibly around the February 14 Coimbatore blasts anniversary. All, together, sending out the message that Tamil Nadu will not be the same again. Not till the next century dawns, at least.

Tell us what you think of this report