Sleuths of the CB-CID Special Investigation Division (SID) arrested Hyder Ali alias ‘Engineer Ali,’ a suspected extremist who was on the run for more than two decades, on Monday in Palakkad district in Kerala. He was wanted in connection with the attempt to murder leaders of Hindu organisations in 1989.
According to the police, he was produced before a judicial magistrate in Coimbatore on Tuesday and remanded in custody. He is currently reported to be lodged in the Coimbatore Central Prison.
Hyder Ali, who belongs to Ukkadam in the city, was suspected to have spent nearly eight years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, before returning to India where he was hiding in Kerala and Bangalore.
The Intelligence officials said that they planned to seek custody of him to probe his activities in the past two decades. They said that his years in Riyadh would be of particular interest to them.
Hyder Ali and 21 others had attacked Sridhar and seven other members of Hindu organisations at Coimbatore in 1989 when they were returning from a funeral. An attempt to murder case was registered and subsequently, the CB CID took over the investigation.
Hyder Ali and his associates had also plotted to kill leaders of various Hindu organisations after the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Al-Umma founder S.A. Basha in 1993 on charges of involvement in the bombing of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) office in Chennai on August 8, 1993, which killed 11 persons and injured seven.
The police had registered a case in 1993 against Hyder Ali on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit murders and possession of explosives.
