Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) [India], July 16 : A Judicial Magistrate's Court in Coimbatore on Wednesday granted five-days' police custody of Tailor Raja, a key accused in the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blast case and multiple communal murder cases, to Tamil Nadu Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS).
According to the official, the accused will be produced in court again on July 21 after the custody period ends.
Earlier, the Police was able to arrest the accused after he reamained on the run for nearly 29 years.
The arrested accused was then identified as Sadiq alias Raja alias Tailor Raja alias Valarntha Raja alias Shahjahan Abdul Majid Makandar alias Shahjahan Shaik.
The accused is a native of Coimbatore and has been absconding for the past 29 years and has never been arrested since 1996, they said.
According to a release, acting on specific and credible intelligence, the accused was arrested by a special team from the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Coimbatore City Police in the Vijayapura district of Karnataka.
The arrested accused is involved in several terror cases and communal murder cases, including the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blasts that claimed 58 lives and injured 250 persons. He is also accused of the 1996 petrol bomb attack in Coimbatore, which resulted in the death of Jail Warden Boopalan; the 1996 Sayeetha murder case in Nagore; and the 1997 murder of Jailor Jayaprakash in Madurai.
In recent weeks, the Anti-Terrorism Squad, in coordination with the Coimbatore City Police, has arrested India's most wanted accused, Abubacker Siddique and Mohamed Ali alias Yunus, from Annamayya District in Andhra Pradesh.
The arrest of Sadiq alias Tailor Raja from Vijayapura district, Karnataka, marks the third successful apprehension of a long-absconding accused involved in terror-related cases.
The blast in 1998 had claimed the lives of 58 people and 250 suffered injuries when 19 bomb explosions rocked Coimbatore city in Tamil Nadu between February 14 and 17, 1998.