Just days ahead of the Coimbatore serial blast in February 1998, a top-secret intelligence note was sent to the Commissioner of Police, Coimbatore city with specific details of large amounts of ammunition being stored in a building in the heart of the city. The police officials who were responsible for acting upon the intelligence input failed to do so. As a result, 58 people lost their lives and 200 people were injured in one of the deadliest serial bombings that rocked the state. The bombings were termed as an ‘intelligence failure’ by opposition parties and others.
A similar allegation of “intelligence failure” has been levelled against the DMK government in the wake of the Coimbatore car blast incident, in which 28-year-old Jamesha Mubin, who drove the car, died on the spot. On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai alleged that the car blast in Coimbatore was a clear case of intelligence failure. The DMK retorted at Annamalai for politicising the case with the 2024 parliamentary elections in mind. Keeping the politics aside, the Coimbatore car blast raises serious questions that both the Union government and the state government need to answer.
Sources say an alert was issued by Tamil Nadu police internal security division on July 19, 2022, listing out the names of suspects across the state who should be put under watch by the police. The alert also warned of a lone wolf attack on police stations, temples and other crowded places in Tamil Nadu. One of the persons named in the intelligence alert was Jamesha Mubin.
According to police officials, Jamesha Mubin was part of the Coimbatore ISIS module and was questioned by National Investigation Agency in 2019 after the Sunday Easter bombings in Sri Lanka. With no prosecutable evidence to arrest him at the time, Mubin was released. However, he was put under the ‘watch list’ of central and state intelligence agencies as they were aware that Mubin was radicalised and inspired by ISIS ideology.
Details emerging from Coimbatore car blast investigations suggest that Mubin was active all along and that he was preparing to launch an attack for quite some time. He also travelled to Kerala multiple times and visited Rashid Ali, who is convicted in a Kerala ISIS module case and is lodged in Thrissur jail. This should have raised red flags, but his absence from Coimbatore went unnoticed despite Mubin being on the watch list.
A former intelligence officer told TNM that intelligence gathering was a continuous process and it could not be time-specific. “If a person has been put under police watch list or questioned by any agencies, all the other agencies both central and state will start following the person and his activities. If this person is ‘out of sight’ or indulges in suspicious activities, immediately red flags are raised,” the officer said.
Another striking detail that emerged during the course of the investigation was the curious case of Firoz Ismail, one of the six arrested in connection with the car blast case. Firoz was deported from the United Arab Emirates in 2020 for indulging in suspicious activities and trying to propagate Islamic State ideology. In the past, there have been instances where the NIA has taken into custody those people who have been deported from UAE for indulging in suspicious activities related to Islamic State. However, in the case of Firoz Ismail, there seems to be no clarity on whether he was under NIA’s scanner.
As for the state government, while transferring the Coimbatore car blast investigation to the NIA, Chief Minister MK Stalin also announced that a specialised wing will be created to prevent such incidents in future. A similar decision after the Coimbatore serial bomb blast incident in 1998, saw the creation of Special Division, SB CID with an aim to collect intelligence about religious fundamentalists and terrorist organisations to watch their covert and overt activities. Sources say that though the Special Division had issued alerts from time to time on Mubin, the mobilisation of explosive material went unnoticed.
Moreover, despite being one of the most communally sensitive places in Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore did not have a full-time officer for city intelligence until September 2022. The post was held by another officer as an additional charge. After Coimbatore witnessed a spate of petrol bomb attacks after a midnight crackdown on Popular Front of India leaders by the NIA, the officer who earlier held the post of Assistant Commissioner at the Special Intelligence Cell was brought back as intelligence officer for Coimbatore city.
Senior officers pointed out that Coimbatore has always been a sensitive region and adequate importance should be given when it came to policing. “Over a period of time there have been no communal incidents in Coimbatore and a sense of complacency has set in. This can be dangerous,” an officer said.
The DMK government recently came under severe criticism for failing to gauge the anger that was brewing in Kallakurichi following the death of a Class 12 student. Thousands of people gathered in Chinnasalem to demand justice for the student and the ensuing violence and arson were a clear indication that intelligence inputs had failed. The Coimbatore car blast case has once again pointed to the urgent need to ensure coordination between various wings of the police department.
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