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Vigil stepped up in Coimbatore after seizures

V.S. Palaniappan

Five remanded to custody in Salem

COIMBATORE: Five persons arrested by the Coimbatore City Police with explosive materials in the pre-dawn search operations on Saturday were produced before the Judicial Magistrate VII on Sunday and remanded to judicial custody at the Salem Central Prison.

Vigil has been stepped up across the city and a watch on suspected fringe elements is being maintained, police said.

Going by the handbills, other literature and books seized from them, those arrested are suspected to be sympathisers of an outfit claimed to be involved in service activities for the welfare of the minority community.

Police suspect that the group, belonging to a particular "cell" in the outfit probably with radical ideologies, had planned to form a separate group to indulge in terror activities.

One of the accused is also suspected to have undergone training at Arivagam in Muthuthevanpatti in Theni district.

The accused are found to be having sufficient skill in shadow watching a target for a strike, storming operations and also in escaping from a scene of attack with ease.

Police sources say that in the interrogation, the accused had revealed that they had planned only low intensity explosions to cause injuries and unleash terror to whip up communal passions.

There had been no plan or effort to cause major explosions to kill.

"The effort, according to the accused, had been to indicate that they were still active and capable of engineering any sabotage and execute them with precision and ease."

The accused also had details about Hindu outfit activists with photographs, maps showing access their houses, routine schedule such as walking time as also the time at which they would be alone, to attack them to create communal tension, police say.

"We have pre-empted their move and foiled a terror plan. As a matter of abundant precaution security has been tightened across the city", says Karan Singha, Commissioner of Police, Coimbatore City.

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