On July 10, 2025, Thursday, the Tamil Nadu Anti-Terrorist Squad said that it has apprehended Sadiq, a prime accused in the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blast case, in which 58 people were killed and 250 others were injured. Sadiq, a Coimbatore native, used aliases including Raja, Tailor Raja, Valarntha Raja, Shahjahan Abdul Majid Makandar and Shahjahan Shaik. He was a prime accused in the communal murder cases across Tamil Nadu. Sadiq is an accused in the 1996 petrol bomb attack in Coimbatore which resulted in the death of Jail Warden Boopalan. He is also an accused in the 1996 Sayeetha murder case in Nagore and the 1997 murder of Jailor Jayaprakash in Madurai.
Sadiq was a tailor by profession and had rented a house at Vallal Nagar in Ukkadam. In this house, the extremists allegedly made and stored bombs used in the 1998 Coimbatore serial blasts.
How the authorities nabbed the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blast case accused?
The Tamil Nadu ATS said in a press release that the ATS and Coimbatore City Police acted on a specific and credible intelligence and arrested the accused in Vijayapura district of Karnataka.
The Tamil Nadu government had banned the Al-Ummah organisation
After the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blast case, the Tamil Nadu government had banned the Al-Ummah organisation. Sadiq was the frontline cadre of this outfit. The organisation’s founder SA Basha was the founder of this incident. Basha, a life term convict in the serial blasts case died on December 16, 2024 while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Coimbatore on Parole.
Currently, apart from Sadiq, another suspect, Mujibur Rehman from Oppanakkara Street, has also been absconding in connection with the Coimbatore serial bomb blast case since February 1998.
