NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, OCT 24
Tamil Nadu police are on high alert after a 25-year-old young man was killed in a car explosion at Ukkadam in Coimbatore on Saturday.
The blast caused the vehicle, a Maruti 800 hatchback to shatter into pieces. Another unexploded LPG cylinder, steel balls, glass pebbles, and aluminium and iron nails were also recovered from the spot by police.
Jameesh Mubin was killed in the explosion triggered by a gas cylinder burst in front of the Kottai Easwaran temple at Ukkadam on Saturday. The body was charred beyond recognition and police had to resort to other methods to identify him.
- It was not an accident, but rather a planned terror attack with ties to the Islamic State: Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party president K Annamalai
- DGP Sylendra Babu, ADGP Thamarai Kannan, Intelligence IG Senthil Velan, and Special Investigation Division SP Stephen Jesupatham hurried from Chennai to Coimbatore to examine the situation on Sunday.
After identifying the deceased as Jameesh Mubin, the Coimbatore police conducted a search of his residence and found a huge stock of explosives. The police also claimed that the NIA had interrogated the youth for his involvement with ISIS and other Islamic organisations.
The police, however, refused to comment on whether Mubin was trying to trigger a deliberate explosion as marbles and nails were found scattered at the accident site.
Sources in the police said that explosive materials like potassium nitrate, aluminium powder, sulfur, and charcoal were retrieved from his house and the police are not ruling out the possibility of a planned attack using the two cylinders in the car of which one had exploded.
Six special cells of the police teams have been deployed to crack the case and sources in the police said that identifying the body was a herculean task.
Following the incident, Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party president K Annamalai asserted that it was not an accident, but rather a planned terror attack with ties to the Islamic State. He said that the DMK-led government in Tamil Nadu is withholding information about the incident.
“Coimbatore Cylinder blast is no more a ‘cylinder blast’. It’s a clear-cut terror act with ISIS links. Will @CMOTamilnadu come out in the open & accept this? TN Govt is hiding this info for 12 hours now. Is this not a clear failure of the state intelligence machinery & DMK Govt?” Annamalai tweeted.
The accused who died during the course of planning this attack had clear cut links to ISIS & was handled from outside the country.
Still some of the elements are active in TN soil. Go mercilessly after these nodes.@CMOTamilnadu,pls come out of your hiding and own your failure
— K.Annamalai (மோடியின் குடும்பம்) (@annamalai_k) October 23, 2022
“The accused who died during the course of planning this attack had clear-cut links to ISIS & was handled from outside the country. Still, some of the elements are active in TN soil. Go mercilessly after these nodes. @CMOTamilnadu, pls come out of your hiding and own your failure,” he further added in a subsequent tweet.
Meanwhile, DGP Sylendra Babu, ADGP Thamarai Kannan, Intelligence IG Senthil Velan, and Special Investigation Division SP Stephen Jesupatham hurried from Chennai to Coimbatore to examine the situation on Sunday.
“He is not affiliated with any organisation. There is no case against the deceased person, but he has links with a few people under NIA’s radar. We have identified the source of the cylinders and the car. This could not be a suicide attack. The explosion happened when the nails and ball bearing were in the car. Chemicals were in his home. We are going through his call history and contacting the people who were in touch with him,” the DGP further added.
“We have traced him within 12 hours of the incident. It is suspected that Jamesha was on his way to some other place in the car with materials used for making explosives. To evade police checks, he must have parked the vehicle in front of the temple where the blast occurred. We don’t know the full details of his plan. Further probe is on,” Sylendra Babu said.
“In 2019, the National Investigation Agency conducted searches at his house. We are investigating his background, links, and possible association with any organisation,” the DGP concluded.
There are some reports saying that Mubin had tried to run away after noticing the police check post, and had intentionally parked near the temple.
