For more than a decade, there was just another familiar face in the APMC yard of Vijayapura, North Karnataka, a chilli commission agent named Shahjahan Sheikh. A cool man with three children, he worked for a long time, rented a minor house, and disappeared into the crowd when the market closed.
His co-pleasures did not know that the person who congratulated every day was Sadiq Ali-known as the “tailor” king in the early 1990s, a frontine cadre of the restricted extremist organization Al-Imah and a prime accused in the 1998 Coimbatore serial bombing, which was more than 58 and got more than 250 injured.
Raja – A18 or accused 18, in the Coimbatore Blast case (CR. No. 151/98), who was arrested by ATS on 9 July – was not alone.
Before that week, the Tamil Nadu’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) disappeared after a deadly parcel bomb attack in 1995 in coordination with the Andhra Pradesh Police, who disappeared after killing a Hindu Munnani leader’s wife, and Mohammad Alisore, his colleague.
Arrest-Part of “Operation Aram” and “Operation Agani” has been distinguished as the most important successes since the formation of ATS, ‘The NIA of the State,’.
Tailor and mole
Birth Sadiq Ali but widely known as the “tailor” king, he was once famous in South Ukkadam, Coimbatore, Safari Jeans had all anger in Tamil Nadu during the-1990s for stitching safari jeans. By 1996, however, his sewing allegedly gave way to bloodier trades: petrol bombings, revenge murders, and finally, participation in the Coimbatore blasts targeted BJP leader LK Advani.
After the attacks, the king disappeared, allegedly wandering in Habbali, Solapur and Guntur, before settling in Vijayapura under the false identity of Shahjahan Sheikh – his elder brother’s name is still living in Coimbatore. By then, the king had allegedly approached his first wife, remarriage, and had children. They never knew who he was.
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While decisions were given in the case between 2007 and 2008, the king’s partition test remains.
The help that ATS finally got was a black mole allegedly – an old -seen place on an old picture. “We fed photos in AI software to create a possible aging sketch,” said a senior ATS officer. “We showed it to a group of old tailor in Hubli. One of them remembered Mol. It was open.”
Armed from this information that the king allegedly left Hubli to live in Vijaypura, a historic city with at least 50 mosques, ATS officials went there and started chasing several faces before they could find out. He chased him for weeks, and once convinced, he called him to the local police station on 9 July.
After some questions, he allegedly confessed. Before leaving, he told his wife and children that he had to go to Coimbatore for a “old case” and would return in a few days.
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He was declared a declared criminal in 2022 for his “role” in the murder of 1996 jail warder Bipalan for an anti-image attack by Al-Emah cadres against the alleged oppression of Muslim prisoners. Raja was also wanted in the case of Saytha murder in Nagor, where the wife of a newly converted Muslim was allegedly killed as her husband opposed the radical interpretations of Islam. In 1997, he was one of the attackers who allegedly killed jailer Jayaprakash in Madurai.
The man who sent death in a parcel
Abubaikar Siddiq was probably the most dangerous of the three. A quiet person from Tamil Nadu, he was allegedly made a radical fanatics by Imam Ali, the mastermind of the 1993 RSS office bombing in Chennai-first-first attack-Babri Masjid. Siddiq was allegedly skilled in collecting IED and parcel bombs.
In 1995, he allegedly sent two such bombs – a Hindu Munnani leader Muthukrishnan, who exploded and killed his wife, and the other was killed by BJP’s Jagawer Pandian, who was thanked to a vigilant postmaster. Siddiqui then allegedly fled the United Arab Emirates, briefly returned to Mumbai in 1998, and disappeared again.
Till 1999, he had allegedly conspired in bomb blasts at the Chennai Police Commission and Victoria Hospital. The bombs were opposed at 7 places in Chennai, 1 Trich and 1 in Coimbatore, and 2 in Kerala between 29 to 30 May, and between 29 and 30 May, 1999, the alleged abuse of al-Imah prisoners. Three explosions occurred in Chennai.
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In 2011, he was allegedly part of a group, plotting a top BJP leader to attempt to be attempted – a plan that was thwarted when the Tamil Nadu police stopped the platform for the formation of their team. Later, in 2012 Dr. Arvind was associated with the murder of Arvind Reddy, along with a group of Kitchen Buhari – a known offshoot of the 2013 Malleshwaram blast accused in Bengaluru.
The apex ATS officer, who coordinated his arrest, said that Siddiq lived in Rechoti in Andhra Pradesh since 2002, sold clothes used on platforms, invested in small real estate deals, and running a petty shop. She allegedly married again in 2021.
“He disappears once a month, claims that he was visiting a family in Tamil Nadu, but he was resting in Kerala or Bengaluru,” the official said. “We had 10 unsuccessful tip-off in the last decade. The 11th finally took us to him.”
Using the AI-based drawings and monitoring months, the ATS located it. On 30 June, he was called to a nearby station – where he allegedly left himself. He also allegedly released Mohammad Ali Mansoor, who was running a cloth shop and was arrested from the same city, Rechoti. The police found 2 kg ammonium nitrate, coopex wire and metal bolts during the raid.
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The Tamil Nadu ATS created in response to the 2022 Coimbatore car bomb blast works with more than 350 officers and state-wide jurisdiction, focused on old terrorist cases, sleeper cells and absconding. In less than a year, the unit has cracked one of the longest terrorist victims in southern India.
DGP Shankar Jival said that it was “a professional, tireless effort”, using both Hamints (secret intelligence) and tachint (using technical sources and methods). He said that the identity of all the three accused was confirmed within 24 hours.
Chief Minister MK Stalin welcomed the arrests as “a proud moment for the Tamil Nadu Police” in a post on X and thanked the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh Police for their support.
Stalin (T) Indian Express (T) Current Affairs
