After a recorded telephonic conversation went viral on social media in which a male voice is heard saying “he is planning to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi”, the Coimbatore police have arrested a 1998 serial blast convict Mohammed Rafiq, police said.
According to news agency PTI, the police said that the eight-minute long conversation was allegedly between Mohammed Rafiq, who has completed a jail term in the 1998 blast case and lives in Coimbatore, and a transport contractor Prakash.
The police have booked Rafiq under Sections 153 (A) (promoting enmity among different groups on grounds of religion) and 506 (ii) (criminal intimidation) of the IPC, The Times of India reported.
“The conversation was mainly related to finances about vehicles. But suddenly the blast convict was heard saying ‘we have decided to eliminate (Prime Minister) Modi, as we were the ones who had planted bombs when (LK) Advani visited the city in 1998,” the police said.
Coimbatore suffered a series of bomb blasts in February 1998 in which 58 people were killed and property worth crores was destroyed.
“I have many cases against me and have damaged more than 100 vehicles,” the man can be heard telling the contractor during the conversation, the police said.
Coimbatore Police formed special teams to investigate the recorded conversation and verify the genuineness of the persons in it, the police said in a press release seen by news agency PTI.
However, Rafiq has told the police that there was no such conspiracy. “Rafiq told us during the investigation that he was only threatening Prakash and there was no conspiracy to kill the PM,” a police officer from the Special Intelligence Unit told The Times of India.