Terror modules in Kerala started operations 20 years back: former DGP Jacob Punnoose

"A person residing in Kozhikode went to overseas to get trained in terror activities, we investigated the matter and made a breakthrough in the case with all the evidence. But there was general presumption that such things would not happen in Kerala," said Punnoose.

Citing examples, the ex-police chief said that those nabbed in the pipe bomb blast in Malappuram years back were later detained in connection with various terror cases. The suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Thadiyantavide Nazeer had landed in police net while probing the circulation of Pakistan currency in Malappuram. 

Punnoose, who was also the former head of the first Anti-Terrorist Squad, said plots were hatched to endanger the life of former chief minister E K Nayanar in which Nazeer was also involved, but the reports were overlooked by political leadership. 

The Home Department is in possession of reports that indicated that the hawala money is being used for terror purposes in the state : Jacob Punnoose

"The Home Department is in possession of reports that indicated that hawala money is being used for terror purposes in the state. The hawala network facilitates the free flow of illegal money into the state which helps in financing terror activities," said Punnoose.

Those who took part in the Wagamon and the Panayikulam terror camps were later accused in many terror strikes in the country, though terror cannot run its deep roots in the state it is wrong to presume that Kerala is safe, the former DGP cautioned.

Kerala's link to terrorism surfaced in 2008 when four men from the state were killed in an encounter at a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Jammu and Kashmir. The state is now once again on the terror map following reports that 21 men and women who disappeared from the state recently had flown out of the country to join the Islamic State (ISIS).