TN Police on high alert as Diwali nears, special squads deployed in districts

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Police are on high alert following intel inputs of possible mischief by sinister elements during Diwali festivities as heavy crowds throng shopping hubs across the state.

Sources at the Tamil Nadu Police headquarters informed IANS that central intelligence received inputs indicating that certain fundamentalist groups may attempt to create disturbances during the festival.

A senior police officer stated that after the car bomb blast in Ukkadam, Coimbatore, on October 21, 2022, in which 29-year-old Jameesha Mubin was killed near the Sangameswara Temple, security measures are put in place every year but this time after the intel inputs the measures have been intensified across Tamil Nadu.

Special police teams have been deployed in Coimbatore, Erode, Madurai, Sivagangai, Theni, Thoothukudi, Kanyakumari, and Chennai districts.

The Greater Chennai Police have deployed 18,000 officers in various parts of the city. Special squads have been established under an Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) and are being monitored by district superintendents of police.

It should be noted that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested 16 individuals, including a teacher at Kovai Arabic College, in connection with the conspiracy behind the Coimbatore suicide car bomb attack.

One of the arrested individuals, Mohammed Talka, is the nephew of S.A. Basha, the founder of the banned terror outfit Al Umma, and a key accused in the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blast, which killed 56 people and injured over 200. According to an NIA statement, Mubin had sworn allegiance to Abu-Al-Hasan Al-Hashimi Al-Qurashi, the then self-styled Caliph of the Islamic State.

The NIA has already filed four charge sheets against 15 accused in the case before the NIA Special Court in Poonamallee, Chennai.

A few months ago, the NIA conducted raids across Tamil Nadu and in certain locations in Hyderabad in relation to the Coimbatore car bomb blast case. One of the locations raided was the residence of a DMK councillor, Mubeera, whose husband was a classmate of the deceased suicide bomber, Jameesha Mubin, at Kovai Arabic College.

The investigation into the radicalization of vulnerable youth in Tamil Nadu and other South Indian states is ongoing.