In a major breakthrough, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Tamil Nadu police nabbed one of the most wanted terror suspects, Sadiq alias Tailor Raja (48), who is accused of the horrendous 1998 serial blasts which rocked Coimbatore city during LK Advani’s visit for the Lok Sabha election campaign.
Acting on specific and credible intelligence, a special team of the ATS, comprising the Coimbatore police, arrested the accused, who had many aliases, from Vijayapura district in neighbouring Karnataka, a police release said. He was one of the four suspects declared absconding by the CB-CID police. Brought to Coimbatore on Wednesday, he was interrogated by the police before being remanded in custody.
A native of the Muslim-dominated Ukkadam locality in Coimbatore and believed to be the supplier of bombs, he had remained elusive since 1996. Besides the 1998 serial blast case, which claimed 58 lives, injuring 250 persons, he is accused in several terror and other communal murder cases, including the 1996 petrol bomb attack which claimed the life of Jail Warden Bhoopalan, the murder of Sayeetha in Nagore the same year, and the 1997 murder of Jayaprakash, a functionary of the RSS-affiliate Hindu Munnani.
Sadiq’s arrest is the third prized catch of the ATS in close succession this month, after nabbing Abubacker Siddique and Mohammed Ali alias Yunus, two notorious terror suspects, from Annamayya district in Andhra Pradesh. This has earned praise from Chief Minister MK Stalin, who took to ‘X’ to congratulate the ATS of the state police. “The ATS has proved that Tamil Nadu is in the forefront by being the number one state in the country in internal security. My hearty congratulations to the ATS and the intelligence team that guided them. Thanks to the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh police for their assistance,” he said.