When explosives were planted at police premises across Tamil Nadu in 1999

Early on May 30, 1999, a low intensity explosion occurred in the Victoria Students’ Hostel at Triplicane in Chennai. Though none was injured in the blast that left a hole in the wall, the incident took place amid escalating intelligence inputs of possible sabotage. It also happened a year after the sensational Coimbatore serial bomb blasts case that left 47 people dead and hundreds of others injured.

Soon after the explosion, the Tamil Nadu police launched a predawn operation by conducting simultaneous searches in major cities across the State. Investigators suspected that explosives could have been planted at major railway stations, bus stands, commercial streets, places of worship and other areas of public gathering.

Bombs at police premises

But, little did they anticipate that bombs could have been placed on their own premises that are guarded by armed police personnel round-the-clock. Bags of explosives with timer devices were found in the Police Commissionerate, Inspector General of Police, Prison Office Complex, in Chennai, Variety Hall Road Police Quarters, Coimbatore and the Cantonment Police Club, Tiruchi.

Sleuths of the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad were called in and the explosives were defused. Timely intervention of police teams averted a major embarrassment to the force within hours of the first blast in Chennai. Some pamphlets accusing the State and prison authorities of harassing innocent Muslim prisoners arrested in connection with the Coimbatore serial blasts were found in the scene of crime.

The then Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi convened an urgent press conference to announce that explosives weighing about 5 kg stuffed in shopping bags were seized. He ordered the Crime Branch CID to investigate the case and unravel the conspiracy.

The CB-CID formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the five cases registered by the local police and then transferred to the agency. “The CB-CID probe could establish that these were not stray incidents but parts of a larger conspiracy hatched by hardcore fundamentalists to retaliate and wreak vengeance against the State for the perceived/alleged ill-treatment of Muslim prisoners arrested and detained in various prisons in the cases of Coimbatore serial blasts that occurred on February 14, 1999,” a senior investigator wrote in an article published in a police journal.

Explosives transported by train

The suspicion that the planting of bombs at different locations in Tamil Nadu could be part of a conspiracy to cause blasts in other parts of the country came true when the railway police seized explosives from the Kochi-Kurla Express.

Two suspects – Abubacker Siddique and Mohammed Yusuf – were carrying the explosives in hand bags in the general compartment to a destination in Maharashtra. However, on seeing fumes emitting from one of the bags, they abandoned the consignment and jumped out of the train near Chempalikundu in Payyangadi police station limits in Kerala.

The Kasargod police registered a case and handed over the probe to the CB-CID of Kerala police. Investigation confirmed the conspiracy hatched at different areas across Tamil Nadu to trigger explosions at multiple locations. Though it was found that the two suspects came from Ilayankudi to board the train, the source of the explosives and the exact location in Maharashtra where they were headed to was not made clear.

Abubacker Siddique, a terror suspect owing allegiance to the Al Umma and wanted in a few cases, remained elusive since 1995. A special team of the Anti-Terrorism Squad of Tamil Nadu police arrested him along with his associate Mohammed Ali from Annamayya district in Andhra Pradesh in July, 2025. The pending cases against the suspect would now resume.

The Tamil Nadu CB-CID clubbed all the cases together and filed a charge sheet in a designated court in Chennai on October 25, 2000. Six years later, the court convicted all the 19 accused, except Abubacker Siddique and Mohammed Ali, as they were then absconding. Five suspects had turned approvers. However, the CB-CID moved a court seeking to treat the approvers as accused in the case, the report published in the journal said.

The period between 1995 and 2002 was quite challenging for the State police. Besides the Coimbatore serial blasts case, Tamil Nadu witnessed the Hindu Munnani office blast and the Nagore parcel bomb case in 1995, the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party functionaries in 1997, the murder of Palani Baba, founder of Jihad Committee, in 1997, Assistant Jailor Jayaprakash murder case in 1997, and Professor K.R. Paramasivam murder case in 2002.