By Express News Service

KOCHI: Kerala is staring at a major security challenge as a significant number of militants and left-wing extremists from other states are using the state as a hideout, disguised as labourers.

Though the state government and the Centre continue to insist on mandatory valid identification documents, such as the voter’s ID and Aadhaar, for the people seeking jobs in Kerala, a majority of them still get away by providing school certificates and other ID.

The arrest of three Bodo militants from Perumbavoor on Thursday has revealed the lacunae in the security system as none of them had any valid ID and were working in a plywood factory which recruited them without asking for the same.

“We have been directing the local factories and other units to collect valid ID from those coming from Northeastern states, but they pay scant regard to our directions,” said Perumbavoor DySP G Venu.

“It’s not possible for the police to do door to door verification as hundreds of people from Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Assam reach Perumbavoor every day.”

A big concern to Intelligence agencies is that are inter-state labour contractors bring workers from other states in large numbers.

“If we look at the profile of the people arrested by Central agencies from the state, the situation is really worrisome,” said a senior officer.

Major arrests in Kerala

In December 2007, CPI (Maoist) central committee member of Malla Raja Reddy was arrested from Angamaly. In October 2015, the Ernakulam Rural police arrested a native of Jharkhand, said to be an area commander of the People Liberation Army, the armed wing of the banned CPI (Maoist).

The suspect was identified as Jitendar Oraon, a native of Latehar district. He was working at an electric wire-manufacturing unit at Chambannur, near Angamaly, for the past three years.

In February 2014, the police arrested Paravai Badusha from Anchal village near Kollam district. He was wanted in connection with several terror cases. Badusha was linked to the murders of BJP leaders in Salem and Vellore in 2013 and was also a suspect in the Bengaluru bomb blast.

In June 2014, the police arrested Hyder Ali alias ‘Engineer Ali,’ a suspected extremist who was on the run for more than two decades, from Palakkad. In November 2015, a wanted Bodo militant identified as Dimga aka Lidion Basumatary, 34, was nabbed from Kozhikode.

In April 2014, a top militant identified as Zia-ur-Rehman alias Waqas was arrested from Munnar. The 24-year-old Pakistan national and terror suspect was working as a labourer.

In August 2018, the NIA nabbed two terrorists identified as Mustafizur Rahman, 35, of Birbhum village, and Abdul Karim of Murshidabad of West Bengal, who were posing as migrant labourers, from Kottakkal in Malappuram.

They were the prime accused in a blast and IED planting case at Bodh Gaya in Bihar on January 20, 2018, and allegedly belonged to Jama’at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).