Kovai serial blast accused held after 27 yrs

NEARLY 27 years after the 1998 Coimbatore serial bomb blast, which claimed 58 lives and injured 250 people, the Coimbatore city police and the Coimbatore unit of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Wednesday arrested one of the key accused in the case in Karnataka.

- EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Coimbatore

The suspect, 'Tailor' Raja (48), has been on the run since 1996 after he was booked in a petrol bomb attack case against a jail warden in Coimbatore. Raja, who was from Bilal Estate at Ukkadam in Coimbatore, has multiple aliases, including Sadiq, Valarntha Raja, Shahjahan Abdul Majid Makandar, and Shahjahan Shaik. He was arrested from Vijayapura (formerly known as Bijapur) district in North Karnataka on Wednesday by a joint team of ATS and city police personnel based on a tipoff, sources said.