Coimbatore blasts case: Suspect held after 20 years

CHENNAI: Twenty years after a series of bomb blasts rocked the textile city of Coimbatore in 1998, a suspect was picked up from Kozhikode in Kerala on Monday by Tamil Nadu police. N P Noohu alias Mankavu Rasheed, 44, of Panniyankara village in Kozhikode, who had fled to Qatar after the blast, returned to Kerala on Monday evening.
A special investigation division of the state intelligence unit secured him from a hideout in Kerala the same evening, sources said.
Noohu, who was declared a proclaimed offender by a trial court in Tamil Nadu, is alleged to have helped the blast masterminds by providing them accommodation after they executed the plan.
Acting on a tip, the SID officials apprehended Noohu hours after he reached Kerala. He was produced before the judicial magistrate court-V on Tuesday. The court remanded him in judicial custody till September 24 and he was lodged at Coimbatore central prison. The CBCID (SID) police has planned to take Noohu under their custody for interrogation.
Serial bomb blasts left 58 dead & 200 injured in Coimbatore in 1998
The Coimbatore City Bazaar police personnel had registered a case under the IPC Sections – 302 (murder), 120(B) (criminal conspiracy), 307 (attempt to murder), 449 (house trespass to commit an offence punishable with death), 465 (punishment for forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged one as a genuine), 212 (harbouring accused), 153(A)(1) (sedition), 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 109 (abetment), 114 (abettor), 353 (preventing public servant from discharging duty) IPC, Sec.3, 4(b), 5 and 6 of the Explosive Substances Act 1908, Sec.25(1-B) (a) of the Arms Act, 1959 u/s. 4 of TNPPDL Act 1992.
The case was later transferred to the CB-CID, SID wing.
On February14,1998, serial bomb blasts coinciding with the visit of senior BJP leader and then party president L K Advani had rocked the industrial city of Coimbatore, leaving 58 people dead and over 200 injured.
Among the locations where bombs went off was the venue where an election meeting of Advani was scheduled.