Nearly 27 years after the 1998 serial blasts hit Coimbatore, claiming 58 lives and leaving 250 persons injured, the Tamil Nadu police have arrested one of the key accused involved in the bombings, from Karnataka.

The police said ‘Tailor’ Raja, 50, a key accused in the February 14, 1998, serial bombings and various communal murder cases across Tamil Nadu, was arrested by a special team of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Coimbatore City Police from Vijayapura district in Karnataka on Wednesday (July 9, 2025).

Raja, who was a member of the banned terror outfit Al Ummah that orchestrated the serial bombings, was brought to Coimbatore and produced before the Fifth Judicial Magistrate Court on Thursday (July 10). The court remanded him in judicial custody till July 24.

Raja, also known as Sadiq alias ‘Valarntha’ Raja alias Shahjahan Abdul Majid Makandar alias Shahjahan Shaik, hailed from Bilal Estate at South Ukkadam in Coimbatore.

According to the police, Raja had been absconding for the past 29 years and never been arrested since 1996. Besides the 1998 serial bomba blasts, he was involved in several terror cases and communal murder cases, including a Molotov cocktail attack in Coimbatore in 1996, which resulted in the death of jail warder Boopalan, the Sayeetha murder case in Nagore in 1996, and the murder of jailor Jayaprakash in Madurai in 1997.

Recently, the ATS, in coordination with the Coimbatore City Police, arrested India’s most wanted accused Abubacker Siddique and Mohamed Ali alias Yunus from Annamayya district in Andhra Pradesh.

The police said Raja’s arrest from Karnataka marks the third successful apprehension of a long-absconding accused involved in terror-related cases.