COIMBATORE: Sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday conducted searches at 40 places in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka in connection with the car blast in Coimbatore and cooker blast in an autorickshaw in Mangaluru. They detained five people for questioning in Tamil Nadu.
According to a press release, NIA conducted searches at 34 places in Tamil Nadu, including 15 locations in Coimbatore. Searches were conducted in Tiruchy, Nilgiris, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Chennai, Tiruvannamalai, Dindigul, Mayiladuthurai, Krishnagiri, Kanniyakumari, and Tenkasi districts. Searches were also conducted at five places in Ernakulam and at one place in Mysuru.
According to sources, searches in Coimbatore began at 6am and lasted till noon. Separate teams escorted by the city police carried out searches in 15 locations in GM Nagar, Thirumarai Nagar, Kuniyamuthur, Podanur, including two houses in Kottaimedu.
Two people suspected to have been associated with Jamesha Mubeen, the suspect who died in the car blast in front of Sangameswarar temple at Kottaimedu on October 23, 2022, were taken for inquiry, the release said. In Tiruchy, the house of an IT employee, Sheik Dawood in New Raja Colony near Bheema Nagar, was searched. Sources said Jamesha Mubeen had allegedly attended online religious classes conducted by Dawood. Three laptops, a pen drive, religious books, and two mobile phones were seized from the house.
In Tiruvannamalai, two men from Nallavanpalayam village, whose identities were not revealed, were questioned in connection with the Coimbatore blast at the Tiruvannamalai taluk police station. NIA also picked up Mohammed Riwan (32) of Ram Colony and Sikandar Basha (32) of Nallur in Tiruppur and took them to Bengaluru for interrogation in the Mangaluru blast case, sources said.