The deep terrorist footprints in Karnataka in particular and south India in general have been ignored by successive governments in the region, turning it a happy hunting ground for jehadis and foreign mercenaries.
Vacillation on the formation of an anti-terrorist body, a demand made by the police establishment itself before and after  terror strikes on the Indian Institute of Science in 2005, had indirectly facilitated the terror cells in the city. The failure of the state intelligence to sniff the UK plot clearly hints at “poor surveillance”, sources here suggest.
The jehadi groups have been moving in tandem with an umbrella organisation, the “Muslim United Front”, which had already taken shape in Bangalore in January 2007, they point out. 
Intelligence sources told Deccan Herald that about a half-a-dozen “terrorist organisations” including The Muslim Defence Force founded in Saudi Arabia by Abu Hamsa and the Indian Muslim Mohammedi Mujahideen (IMMM) were active in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Muslim Defence Force, has a branch in Pakistan also.
Hamsa is learnt to have later teamed up with another Muslim extremist, Azam Ghori, to set up the IMMM. The IMMM was responsible for the bomb blasts in Hyderabad, Karim Nagar and Nizamabad; its members spread its network in Kerala too.
Taliban training
Ghori hailed from Hanmajjpet in Warangal district and received training in explosives at terrorist training camps run by the Taliban in Afghanistan and later moved to Hyderabad to head the IMMM. Ghori has been accountable for the post-Babri demolition attacks in the country, it is believed.
A little-known religious sect with Pakistani links and a strong southern base  is  the Deendar Anjuman.
The outfit came into the limelight in 2000 with explosions in churches, a temple and a mosque in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa.
Anjuman’s suspected role was established from the inflammatory pamphlets picked up by the police from a van following raids at Vijayawada and at Varthur village near Bangalore confirming a systematic campaign to incite hatred and spread violence among various religious groups.
The Anjuman which was banned by the Central government on May 17, 2005, has strong roots in Karnataka as it was known to be set up by Hazrat Qibla of Gulbarga in as early as 1924.
The Muslim Munetra Kazgham is another terror group which has  struck roots in the south, mainly in Tamil Nadu.
SIMI in Kerala
Sources said Kerala has been “infiltrated”  by the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), with Kondotty in Malappuram district turning into the nerve centre.
SIMI, an offshoot of the Jammat-e-Islami-e-Hind, was formed in 1977 in Aligarh and is linked to the fundamentalist ideology of Maulana Maududi, the cleric of Karnataka who had migrated to Pakistan in 1947.
Apart from SIMI, Kerala has jehadi groups in various garbs like the Islamic Seva Samiti, the Muslim National Development Party and the All India Jehad Committee.
Tableeghi-e-Jamaat to which the suspects in the UK terror strike are being linked, is a Muslim revivalist organisation preaching a purantical brand of Islam.
Among the southern states Karnatka and Bangalore in particular has been the prime focus of the jehadi groups.
At lest 13 people of Karantaka origin have been arrested in daring “terror attacks” in just over a year and a half.