Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on December 9 cautioned the district collectors and the police not to be complacent in putting down militancy, terrorism as well as extremism in the state and urged officials not to relax the tight regimen on security checks that had already been put in place.

"There is no room for complacency. The tendency of militants and terrorist groups, when pursued with firmness and relentlessness is to go into hibernation after that retreat to safer havens and then regroup by a process of infiltration into new front organisations. We must be watchful and vigilant and continue to gather intelligence and keep up the pressure," she said addressing the officials at the three-day conference of district collectors and police officials that began on December 9.

Jayalalithaa said recent incidents in Dharmapuri district were a pointer to this fact that extremism could rear its ugly head at any time and could manifest itself in individual and group violence without warning. This was true of fundamentalist groups also whose access to foreign funding had been conclusively established in a number of cases. Thus preparedness at all times and assimilation of intelligence had to be the 'watchwords', she said.

PTI