Tamil Nadu police arrest terror suspect involved in several cases, including blast outside Karnataka BJP office

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Police on Tuesday said it has arrested a terror suspect, who was absconding for 30 years, for his involvement in several blasts in the state and in other places, including the 2013 explosion outside the Karnataka BJP office in Bengaluru’s Malleswaram, from Annamaya district in Andhra Pradesh.

Nagoor Abubhacker Siddiq, who is also a suspect in the case of planting a bomb on the route of senior BJP leader L K Advani’s yatra in Madurai in 2011, was taken into custody along with his aide Tirunelveli Mohammed Ali by a special team of the Tamil Nadu police which went to Andhra Pradesh acting on a tip-off.

A senior police official said Siddiq was involved in the 1995 blast at the Hindu Munnani office in Chennai, hurling of a parcel bomb outside the residence of one Nagoor Thangam Muthukrishnan, and for planting bombs at seven locations, including the Chennai Police Commissioner’s office in 1999.

“He is believed to have played a major role in the blasts outside the BJP office in Bengaluru,” the official added. A bomb exploded outside the BJP office on April 17, 2013, injuring at least 16 people, just three weeks before the state voted to elect a new assembly.

Mohammed Ali Khan, a founding member of Al-Ummah which was responsible for the deadly Coimbatore blasts, was earlier convicted in the 1998 serial blasts at a Coimbatore rally of veteran BJP leader LK Advani in which about 50 people had died.

The official added that Siddiq also played a critical role in planting a bomb on the route of Advani’s yatra in Tirumangalam near Madurai which was defused before the senior BJP leader arrived.

“He was on the run for the past 30 years,” the official added. Ali, who has been hiding for the past 26 years, is also accused in cases relating to planting of bombs in seven locations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.