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N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras
More than three-and-a-half years after the event, charges were framed on Tuesday against 167 persons accused of involvement in the Coimbatore serial blasts case after the Madras high court granted some flexibility in the matter to the trial court and ordered a speedy trial thereafter.
Amidst tight security, Special Judge A Selvam in Coimbatore posted the case to November 27, after framing charges against Abdul Nasser Mahdhani, founder-president of the Kerala-based People's Democratic Party, S A Batcha, founder of the banned Al-Umma organisation in Tamil Nadu, and his son Siddiq Ali, among others.
The case flows from the serial bomb blasts that rocked the cotton city on February 14, 1998, when Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani, then president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, was scheduled to address a campaign meeting ahead of the Lok Sabha election.
One of the accused, Riazur Rehaman, has since turned approver and confessed to having supplied the explosives for the manufacture of the bombs used in the blasts.
Earlier, while ordering a speedy trial as per law, Justice P D Dinakaran of the high court dismissed a plea of eight of the accused for a separate trial and cited two Supreme Court verdicts in the matter.
Justice M Karpagavinayagam, in a separate case, dismissed a similar plea from 40 others accused.
Justice Dinakaran referred to the vexatious methods being adopted by some of the accused, how some had declined the offer of the government, which had appointed 27 lawyers to fight their case, and how some of the accused were shouting slogans and creating a rumpus inside the trial court. "These are all liable to be condemned," he said.
In this context, Justice Dinakaran directed the trial court to frame charges when the case came up for hearing on Tuesday, or in the hospitals, where some of the accused have been admitted from time to time.
"The special court should proceed with the trial immediately thereafter, and complete it expeditiously," he ordered.
The Coimbatore Serial Blasts: The complete coverage
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