COIMBATORE: A wanted Al-Umma activist, on the run for over two decades, was arrested in Palakkad on Monday night and remanded in custody in Coimbatore.
The accused, Engineer Hyder Ali, 45, is wanted in a number of cases, the most serious of which were in connection with the attempted murder of Hindu and various Right-wing organisation leaders in 1989 and in the immediate aftermath of the bombings of RSS offices in Chennai in 1993.
Ali was wanted in connection with a plot to kill prominent Hindu leaders in Coimbatore in retaliation for the arrest of S A Baatcha, an Al- Umma leader who was accused of bombing RSS offices in Chennai resulting in the deaths of 11 people.
The Big Bazaar Street police here had registered a case against Ali, Baatcha and Mohammed Ansari as well as 20 others after police raids on sleeper cells in the city in November 1993.
The police had charged Ali and others with charges of criminal conspiracy to commit murder, the Explosive Substances Act as well as other serious offences. Ali, along with another accomplice, Mujibur Rehman, went underground and has ever since been on the run.
Officials said they received information that Ali had been cooling his heels in Saudi Arabia, and resurfaced in Kerala some time ago.