1998 Coimbatore blasts: Man absconding for 20 years arrested

The Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) special investigation team have arrested a man, who was absconding for 20 years, in connection with the 1998 serial bomb blasts in Coimbatore that killed 58 people.

NP Noohu alias Mankavu Rasheed was picked up from Kozhikode in Kerala on Monday by a Special Investigation Division of the Tamil Nadu Police, an official release said on Tuesday.

Based on a "specific intelligence input", Noohu was arrested, it said, adding that he was "hiding abroad for the last 20 years".

He had been declared as a 'proclaimed offender' by a court, the official release said, adding that Noohu was being interrogated.

On February 14, 1998, serial bomb blasts coinciding with the visit of senior BJP leader and then party president LK Advani had rocked the industrial city of Coimbatore, leaving 58 people dead and over 200 injured.

Among the locations where bombs went off was the venue where an election meeting of Advani was scheduled.