Coimbatore car blast | Accused taken to Ukkadam for evidence collection

National Investigation Agency officials have taken four of the accused in the blast to several spots in Coimbatore including the residence of one of the accused; they will also be taken to areas of the Sathyamangalam forests where a secret meeting was allegedly held in February 2022

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday night brought four of the accused in the Coimbatore car blast case, to places in and around Ukkadam in the city, for the collection of evidence.

The four accused, namely Muhammad Riyas, 27, Muhammad Nawaz Ismail, 25, Sanofar Ali, 28, and Mohammed Thoufeek, 25, were brought around 11.30 pm to a house at H.M.P.R. Steet, near Ukkadam, where Jameesha Mubin, 29, the suspected key conspirator, lived.

Mubin was killed in the blast in front of Sangameswarar temple in Coimbatore on the morning of October 23 last year.

It is suspected that raw materials used to make the explosives were stored and mixed at the rented house of Mubin. His wife and two children were sent to her residence at Al-Ameen Colony three days before the blast.

The police had also recovered footage from a surveillance camera, which covered the road in front of Mubin’s residence, showing suspicious activities ahead of the blast. It showed a few men loading suspected explosive materials into Mubin’s hatchback that was used for the blast. A search of Mubin’s residence after the blast on October 23 had unearthed a large quantity of raw materials such as potassium nitrate, aluminium powder, sulfur and charcoal.

The NIA team also took the four accused to other places, including the residence of Ali, and a bakery on Sungam – Ukkadam Bypass, late on Tuesday. Riyas, Ismail, Ali, Thoufeek, and two others, namely Muhammad Thalha, 25, and Sheikh Hidayathullah, 42, have been in NIA custody for 10 days from January 7. After three days of interrogation in Chennai, they were brought to Coimbatore on Tuesday.

Sources said the NIA is likely to take Hidayathullah and Ali to Hasanur and Kadambur areas of Sathyamangalam forests in Erode district where a secret meeting was allegedly held in February 2022. Mubin and another accused, Muhammad Azharudheen, 23, were the other alleged participants of the meeting.