Coimbatore blast: 'We're not rabble rousing, but seeking corrective action,’ says BJP's Annamalai

The BJP’s intention was not to trouble the Tamil Nadu government or the state police over the October 23 fatal car explosion in the city but make them take corrective measures and also expedite the probe, the party’s state president K Annamalai said on Monday (October 31).

The TN BJP chief, who has raised a number of questions vis-à-vis the probe into the matter, which has since been transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), alleged there was specific systemic failure in preventing the incident, despite central intelligence inputs over the movement of radicalised youths.

Also read: Coimbatore blast: What we know a week after the incident 

“I do not want to give trouble” to the government and police, he said, adding that he was raising the questions in the interest of the state and for expediting the probe.

Reiterating that the Centre had given specific alert to three states and three cities, including Coimbatore, Annamalai told media persons the state government and the police, instead of announcing it just as a cylinder explosion, should have described it as a terror attack or suicide attack so that the city’s people could be more alert.

A man identified as Jamesha Mubin had been charred to death in the gas cylinder explosion in the car near a temple in the city last Sunday with the BJP claiming it to be a terror attack and the victim as an ISIS sympathiser.

“Despite the alert and also knowing that Mubin was under NIA radar since 2019, along with 96 others who were close to ISIS, police failed to trace his movement,” he said adding that prevention of crime would have been better than detection.

Also Read: Coimbatore car blast: NIA launches probe, speaks to temple priest

This could be due to communication failure, as the intelligence agency and its sister agency in Tamil Nadu failed to act on the alert from the Centre on October 18, Annamalai said while displaying nails and ball-bearing allegedly found from the explosion site and appreciated the city police for rushing the spot and solving it swiftly.

It was not top officials but lower level personnel who rushed to the site and managed to solve the case, he said.

Earlier, Annamalai visited the site and the temple and held discussions with the temple priests.

Also read: Coimbatore: Link between car cylinder explosion, 1998 serial blasts, Lanka Easter bombings

He, along with over 100 BJP cadres, sat in the temple premises and recited Kanda Sashti Kavacham, a hymn sung in praise of Lord Muruga, and offered prayers to the Kottai Eswaran, the presiding deity.

(With inputs from agencies)