Chennai: Coimbatore Police have deployed around 2,000 officers to prevent any untoward incidents during the funeral procession of S. A. Basha, founder of the banned Islamist organisation Al-Ummah and mastermind of the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blasts.<\/p>\n
The blasts resulted in the deaths of 58 innocent people and left more than 200 injured.<\/p>\n
Coimbatore City Police Commissioner Balakrishnan has instructed all police officers on leave to report for duty immediately.<\/p>\n
Basha (84), who had been on parole since April 18, 2024, died at a private hospital in Coimbatore on Monday evening.<\/p>\n
His body was taken to his son Siddique Ali\u2019s residence at Rose Garden in South Ukkadam, Coimbatore, on Monday.<\/p>\n
The family announced that the last rites would be held at the Hyder Ali Tippu Sultan Sunnath Jamaath Masjid at Flower Market on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A funeral procession will take place from the Rose Garden in South Ukkadam to the Sunnath Jamaath Masjid. Police have stepped up vigilance to prevent any untoward incidents.<\/p>\n
Basha, who began his career as a firewood commission agent and real estate businessman, founded Al-Ummah and was the prime accused in the Coimbatore serial bomb blasts.<\/p>\n
The attack was allegedly orchestrated to target BJP leader L. K. Advani, who had come to Coimbatore to attend an election meeting.<\/p>\n
Following the incident, more than 160 individuals, including Al-Ummah founder-president Basha and secretary Ansari, were arrested, and Al-Ummah was subsequently banned.<\/p>\n
Basha was accused of arranging the procurement of approximately 650 kg of gelatin and other explosive substances from Mysuru to manufacture bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).<\/p>\n
In the Coimbatore bomb blast case, the Crime Branch-CID (Special Investigation Team) arrested 166 individuals, including Basha.<\/p>\n
A special court for the trial of the case convicted 158 individuals.<\/p>\n
Of these, 43 were sentenced to life imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Later, 41 individuals appealed to the Madras High Court. The court released two of them as they were juveniles at the time of the blasts.<\/p>\n
The court confirmed life imprisonment for 17 individuals and acquitted 22 others.<\/p>\n
The Madras High Court also rejected Basha\u2019s petition against his life sentence. It may be recalled that Al-Ummah had a strong presence in<\/p>\n
Tamil Nadu\u2019s western and southern districts, particularly Coimbatore, Dindigul, Madurai, and Tirunelveli.<\/p>\n
Basha was also involved in multiple murder attempts on prominent leaders, including former BJP national president Jana Krishnamoorthy and Hindu Munnani leader Thirukovilur Sundaram.<\/p>\n
He was also accused in the attempted murder of then-Hindu Munnani Tamil Nadu state organizer Rama Gopalan in 1984 at the Madurai railway station.<\/p>\n
\u2013IANS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chennai: Coimbatore Police have deployed around 2,000 officers to prevent any untoward incidents during the funeral procession of S. A. Basha, founder of the banned Islamist organisation Al-Ummah and mastermind of the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blasts. The blasts resulted in the deaths of 58 innocent people and left more than 200 injured. Coimbatore City Police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-52864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nation"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/202412173282387-JRF2I4.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52866,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52864\/revisions\/52866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}