Puducherry, Feb 4 (BPNS)
A special court in Puducherry convicted six people belonging to a fundamentalist Tamil outfit, Tamilar Viduthalai Padai for planting a bomb near the residence of former Chief Minister of Puducherry, V. Narayanasamy. The incident occurred on January 23, 2014 when Narayanasamy’s staff member found a bomb planted under a car in front of Narayanasamy’s official residence. The senior Congress leader was then the Chief Minister of Puducherry. National Investigation Agency (NIA) has conducted the probe and arrested the culprits.
Police arrived on the scene and removed the bomb and an expert team from the Tamil Nadu bomb disposal squad reached the spot and defused the bomb the next day at the premises of Uppalam port the next day. The prosecution in its report charged that the bomb contained 21 electrical detonators and 12 non-electrical detonators and had a commercial explosive ‘Gelx’.
The bomb squad had in its report submitted to the Police said that if the bomb had detonated, it would have caused major damage to lives and properties in the adjacent areas.
The prosecution charged that later on February 11, 2014 a similar bomb was found near the Reliance supermarket at Uthangudi, Madurai.
In March 2014, Tamil Nadu ‘Q’ branch arrested 4 people of Tamilar Viduthalai Padai on charges of planting bombs near the residence of the then Puducherry Chief Minister, V. Narayanasami, and also planting a bomb near the Reliance supermarket at Uthangudi, Madurai. The arrested were identified as R. Tiruselvam (33), his brother R. Kalailingam (37), M. Tamilarasan (38), and Kaviarasu alias Raja (38), all hailing from Sivaganga district.
Karthik alias Aadhi (32) and another person, John Martin (28) were also arrested for their involvement in the share.
The prosecution investigation was conducted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which took over the case in March 2014. According to offices of the NIA, the accused on questioning said that they planted the bombs in protest to the then UPA government promoting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector. V. Narayana Sami was then a Minister of State in Manmohan Singh government
