More bombs recovered in Coimbatore
The Coimbatore rural police recovered 75
petrol bombs from a bush near Salamat street in suburban
Karumbukkadi during combing operations late on Thursday night.
Following the recovery of the bombs, the police continued their
combing operations in the area, on Friday morning.
All vehicles bound for Kerala and other places from the
outskirts of Coimbatore were thoroughly checked following a
tip-off that the extremists behind the serial bomb blasts were
trying to smuggle out the bombs hidden in the textile city.
Earlier on Thursday, in the biggest ever haul in the city, the
police seized a huge cache of explosives from a petty shop in
Thirumal street, close to the building where six extremists were
killed in their hideout in an explosion on Sunday last.
Deputy Commissioner of Police J M Arumugam said 200
gelatine sticks, 500 pipe bombs, an equal number of petrol
bombs and 1000 electrical detonators, packed in
three gunny bags, were recovered from the shop which had remained
closed since the serial bomb blasts on Saturday last.
The shop owner, Kadher, is absconding, he said.
In Madras, a delegation of senior Bharatiya Janata Party
leaders who visited Coimbatore, scene of the serial bomb blasts, on
a fact-finding mission charged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M
Karunanidhi with covering up the real nature of the blasts and
said the nation expected an apology from him in this regard.
Addressing a press conference, K R
Malkani, Vijaykumar Malhotra, both members of the Rajya Sabha, and
party national vice president Jana Krishnamurthy, said while
Karunanidhi sought to maintain that there was no human bomb
targeted at BJP president L K Advani, who was to have addressed a
campaign meeting at Coimbatore on February 14,
Assistant Commissioner of Police Antony Selvaraj had told the BJP
state secretary the next day a human bomb, who was to have
targeted Advani, blew himself up when chased by the police near the
stage.
The BJP leaders alleged that while the chief minister and
the friends of the government maintained that the explosions took
place 800 metres away from the stage, the explosions had occurred
within 150 to 250 feet from the stage.
UNI in Coimbatore
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