The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the Coimbatore car blast, has got the custody of five accused for further questioning.

An NIA court in Chennai on Thursday sent the accused — Mohammed Azharudhhin(23), Feroze Khan (29), Firoz Ismail (27), Umar Faruq (39) and Mohammed Nawaz Ismail (25) — to NIA custody till March 16.

The five accused, according to sources in the NIA, will be taken to various places for getting further information on whether there are other people behind the crime.

On October 23, 2022, Islamic State suspect Jameesha Mubin was charred to death in a car blast in Coimbatore.

The Islamic State of Khorasan Province had in a recent issue of its propaganda magazine, Voice of Khurasan stated that it had a role in the Coimbatore car blasts of October 23, 2022, and the pressure cooker blast in an autorickshaw on November 19, 2022.

A paragraph in the Voice of Khurasan in an article titled, ‘A message to the inhabitants in the land occupied by cow and mice worshipping filths’ said, “Know that the spark of war has already been lit. Do you not consider our attacks in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) and Karnataka (Bangalore), where our brothers who took revenge for the honour of our religion and terrorized kufar and its followers? Thus we promise that this is just the beginning.”

Even as the write-up has mentioned the second place as Bangalore in Karnataka, the central agencies infer that Mangaluru was misquoted as Bangalore.

The article has also mentioned that Kashmir and the Gujarat riots and Babri Masjid demolition have not been forgotten.

The NIA will be conducting a thorough interrogation of those in custody and will try to ascertain whether those in custody have any connection with the article that has come out in Voice of Khusaran.

Mohammed Thalha, nephew of S.A. Basha, leader of Al-Umma the Islamic outfit behind the 1998 February Coimbatore blasts, is also in judicial custody as an accused in the Coimbatore car blast case.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed.)