Tamil Nadu director general of police (DGP) Shankar Jiwal on Friday held a press conference to announce the arrests of three key terror suspects— Abubacker Siddique, Mohammed Ali and Sadiq alias Tailor Raja— in a coordinated multi-state operation led by the state Anti Terror Squad (ATS).
The three accused were all wanted in connection with the 1998 Coimbatore blasts in Tamil Nadu , which killed 58 people.
The operation was carried out in coordination with the police forces in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh over the past six months, said Jiwal. Siddique and Ali— currently not linked to any banned organisations — were picked up from Andhra Pradesh’s Kadappa district, while Sadiq, who is believed to be linked to the extremist outfit Al-Umma, was nabbed from Vijayapura in Karnataka, he added.
“The investigation is ongoing,” said the senior police officer.
Meanwhile, referring to the custodial death of 29-year-old Ajith Kumar, a temple guard from Sivaganga district, Jiwal said, “We can’t judge whether police force in any district is professional or not with few cases.”
“Few unfortunate incidents have happened for which we definitely took action and we apologised too,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“Few unfortunate incidents have happened for which we definitely took action and we apologised too,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Kumar died on June 28 due to alleged custodial torture, after he was picked up during a routine probe into a matter surrounding a missing golden chain, which belonged to one of the temple visitors.
On July 8, the Madurai bench of the Madras high court ordered a CBI probe into the incident.