Author: Our Correspondent
in Coimbatore
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: August 10, 2000
The Coimbatore police
are investigating a case where a police officer received a packet of sweets
and fruits coated with cyanide.
The inspector, Muthuraj,
was posted at the Ukkadam police station in the city. He had come
down heavily on Islamic fundamentalists recently.
According to sources,
the police station, which was opened in the Muslim-dominated locality after
the bomb blasts of 1998, received a packet addressed to Muthuraj by courier.
Since the officer was
not expecting anything of the kind and possibly apprehending a parcel bomb
he informed his superiors. Though the parcel contained only sweetmeats
and dry fruits, a suspicious official ordered a chemical examination.
The cyanide-coating then came to light.
"It did not look right,
the colour and smell were just not right," says a police official.
"Thank God, no one ate it."
The police suspect that
it was the accidental delay in opening the parcel that may have saved him.
The inspector was not at the station when the parcel arrived, and came
in only the next morning. By then, possibly due to a chemical reaction,
the contents were discoloured and smelling.
Police investigations
show that the packet had been sent in the name of one 'Shaktivel' from
Vadakkancheri in Trissur district, Kerala. As expected, the address
was bogus. However, police say it could still have emanated from
Trissur district, from where most of the fundamentalists, arrested in connection
with the Coimbatore blasts came.
Muthuraj was the investigator
responsible for arrest of Siddique Ali, the son of Al Umma founder S A
Basha, in the Kottai Ameer murder case. Ali got a life sentence in
the case.
