The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the car cylinder explosion in front of a temple here recently, conducted searches at several places in the city and across Tamil Nadu on Thursday, November 10. The searches were carried out by a team that arrived from Chennai and Kochi at over 30 places in the city including Kottaimedu, Ukkadam, Ponvizhanagar and Rathinapuri as part of the state-wide searches, police said.

Sources in the investigating team told IANS on Thursday that a person has been taken into custody and is being interrogated. He is being questioned on the background of the car which blasted on October 23 morning near the Sangameswarar temple, Ukkadam, Coimbatore. Six associates of Jameesha Mubin -- the man who was killed in the blast, have been arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

Raids are underway at 33 places in Coimbatore and Chennai besides several other places across the state.

As per the sources, this is the biggest raid ever conducted by the premier agency in Tamil Nadu.

The city police which investigated the case had seized 75 kg of explosives, documents from Jameesha Mubin, who died in the explosion on October 23 including the drawing of a flag resembling that of ISIS and wordings like those who touched Allah's name will be uprooted.

Police also arrested six associates of Mubin, who had helped him to purchase explosives on an e-commerce platform and transport them from his rented house to another house.

The explosion was termed as a 'Lone wolf' attack, police said. The targets of the searches were said to be some suspects who had connections with a few banned organisations, police, who refused to share more details, said.

With Inputs from agencies