Tamil Nadu: Car explosion kills man under NIA radar in Coimbatore

Solving a case of car explosion in the communally sensitive Coimbatore city, within 12 hours on Sunday, Tamil Nadu Director General of Police C Sylendra Babu said the man killed in the incident was Jameza Mubeen, who had come under the radar of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2019. 

Mubeen’s charred body was found near the mangled remains of a car which had exploded near the Kottai Eswaran Temple, close to the Town Hall, a busy commercial area, at around 4 am on Sunday. 

Since a couple of LPG cylinders were found at the site, initially police believed it to be a case of an LPG blast-triggered accident. However, forensic experts, who were called in, soon after the area was cordoned off, found shrapnel including nails and tiny metal balls scattered around the explosion site. This indicated that persons, who would have wanted maximum impact in an explosion, could have been involved. 

The arrival of the DGP Sylendra Babu, preceded by the ADGP (Law and Order) Thamaraikanna, to the explosion site earlier in the day gave enough indications that the blast could not have been a mere LPG accident. 

Late in the evening, Babu told journalists, the six special police teams formed during the day, had cracked the case with the identification of the deceased. Police had found some explosive chemicals stacked up at Mubeen’s premises.

Asked if any fundamentalist group of terror outfit could be behind the blast, the DGP said, further investigations were on in the case. 

Published on: Sunday, October 23, 2022, 09:40 PM IST