Coimbatore car blast | NIA files second supplementary chargesheet against two accused

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday filed the second supplementary charge sheet against two more accused involved in the car blast in front of the Sangameswarar temple in Coimbatore on October 23, 2022.

Mohammed Idris and Mohammed Azarudeen, alias Azar, residents of Coimbatore, were arraigned by the agency. They are the 12th and 13th accused in the case, which pertains to the explosion of a Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device at Kottaimedu. ISIS sympathiser Jamesha Mubeen, 29, who triggered the blast, died on the spot.

In Coimbatore, a bomb on wheels

The NIA probe revealed that Mubeen, along with other accused — Azarudeen, Umar Faaruq, Sheikh Hidayathullah and Sanofer Ali — conspired to carry out a series of suicidal terror attacks in the city, following a conspiracy hatched in a forest at Sathyamangalam in Erode district.

According to a release from the agency, the attack was intended to wreak vengeance on the kafirs (non-believers), as stated in one of the self-made confessional videos made by the accused a few days before the attack.

Azarudeen, who acted as a pedagogue to the module involved in the attack, was earlier arrested by the NIA in 2019 for indoctrination of his followers with ISIS ideology and alleged links with the National Thowheed Jamath of Sri Lanka, which was responsible for the 2019 Easter bombings.

Coimbatore car blast mastermind wanted to orchestrate Sri Lanka’s Easter bombings-model attack: NIA chargesheet

Investigations revealed that Azarudeen had motivated three accused who met him in the high-security prison at Viyyur in Kerala where he was lodged in 2019. This led to the planning and preparation of the Coimbatore car blast. Faaruq was elected as the ‘Amir’ to lead the execution of the attack, the release said. Idris was part of an ISIS module of Azarudeen and was radicalised by ‘bayans’ of Zahran Hashim, the mastermind of the Easter bombings. He was tasked with buying a used vehicle for the blast and assisting Mubeen in the attack.

The release said the larger aim of the conspiracy was to create terror in the minds of a section of society by targeting its various branches — the general administration, the police, the judiciary, among others. The NIA charge-sheeted six accused on April 20, 2023, and filed the first supplementary charge sheet against five others on June 2.