One more arrested in 2022 Coimbatore car bomb blast case, 13th held so far

The car bomb blast had taken place on October 23 last year in front of a temple in Coimbatore's Ukkadam.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested another person linked to a module that carried out a car bomb explosion in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu last year, an official said on Friday.

Mohammed Azarudeen alias 'Azar' is the 13th person to be arrested in the case, which was taken over by the NIA on October 27 last year, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.

The car bomb blast had taken place on October 23 last year in front of a temple -- Arulmigu Kottai Sangameshwarar Thirukovil -- on Eswaran Kovil Street in Coimbatore's Ukkadam.

The agency said that Azarudeen is currently lodged at the Viyyur high-security prison in Thrissur in Kerala, in another case. He was earlier arrested and charge-sheeted in the Tamil Nadu ISIS module case and was subsequently sent to judicial custody, it said.

'Investigations have revealed that Azarudeen had previously taken secret 'bayan' classes along with the accused in the Coimbatore blast case, including Jamesha Mubeen, the vehicle's driver who was killed in the explosion. It was at these classes that all the accused were indoctrinated with ISIS ideology and motivated to commit violent acts of terror,' a spokesperson of the agency said.

The official said during the course of further probe, the NIA found that Mubeen along with two other arrested persons had met Azarudeen in prison.

'They had then hatched the Sathyamangalam conspiracy (the plan of the car bomb blast was concretised in the Sathyamangalam forests) to plan and prepare a terror attack to avenge Azar's arrest and to get him out of jail through a jail-attack,' the spokesperson said.

'Mubeen and his associates were inspired by hardcore ISIS ideology to conspire and commit the act of terror after taking 'bayath' or allegiance to its self-proclaimed Caliph Abu-Al-Hasan Al-Hashimi Al-Qurashi. As per investigations, the accused had intended to take revenge on non-believers of Islam through this terror attack,' the spokesperson said The agency has so far filed two charge-sheets in the case before the NIA Court, Poonamallee, Chennai.

Six accused were charge-sheeted on April 20 and five more on June 2. The 12th accused, Mohammed Idris, was arrested on August 2.