Two persons hailing from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu were arrested from Kecheri in Kerala’s Thrissur district for suspected involvement in the April 17 blast outside the BJP office in Bangalore. With this, the total number of arrests in connection with the blast, in which 17 persons including 11 policemen were injured, rose to 13.
Those arrested on Saturday were identified as Zulfiqar Ali (22) and Shabeer (24), said to be natives of Ukkadam, Coimbatore. They were arrested by a joint team of the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu police forces from the house of a relative of Shabeer at Kecheri. The police team had reached the house at Kecheri following mobile phone signals.
Though reports said that the joint police team had received help from the Kerala Police’s Intelligence wing, officials at the Kunnamkulam Police Circle office said that they had no prior information and that they came to know of the arrests from the residence of the locality of the house of Shabeer’s relative.
It is said that the duo had been hiding at the Kecheri house for the past five days. Zulfikar Ali, known also as Boxer Ali as per reports from Coimbatore, was a member of Al-Umma, a fundamentalist outfit in Tamil Nadu, and was an accused in the Bangalore blast case while Shabeer is said to be his accomplice. The duo had been taken to Bangalore.
People residing near the house of Shabeer’s relative said that the police team had taken away the duo in an action of lightning speed. The owner of the house said that the police had come rushing in a jeep and had asked him nothing. local people said the police team had left with the duo before they got enough time to inquire about the matter.