The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Coimbatore unit, is in the process of seeking the jurisdictional court for the trial of ‘Tailor’ Raja in the murder of jail warder Boopalan in Coimbatore in 1996.
The ATS move comes after the arrest of Raja from Vijayapura district in Karnataka on July 9 this year, 29 years after his alleged involvement in the murder, said sources privy to the development.
Raja and three others, namely Abbas alias ‘Oosi’ Abbas, Abuthahir, Shamsudheen, were alleged to have been involved in the murder of Boopalan, who served as a jail warder of the Coimbatore Central Prison in 1996. They were accused of having hurled five Molotov cocktails at Boopalan, when he was on duty at the office of the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Prisons, on Dr. Nanjappa Road, on April 22, 1996. They also allegedly assaulted the jail warder with weapons. He was admitted to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital, where he died two days later. The attack was to take revenge on prison warders, who allegedly ill-treated Muslim prisoners.
After the initial investigation by the Race Course police, during which Abbas, Abuthahir and Shamsudheen were arrested, a Special Investigation Team of the Crime Branch CID took over the probe. The charge-sheet in the case was filed in December 1998 and the First Additional District Court acquitted the trio.
Besides Boopalan murder, Raja was alleged to have involved in the serial bombings in Coimbatore on February 14, 1998, which claimed 58 lives and left 250 persons injured, the Sayeetha murder case in Nagore in 1996 and the murder of jailor Jayaprakash in Madurai in 1997.
Sources added that Raja, who also went by aliases including Sadiq and ‘Valarntha’ Raja, will have to face trial in the serial bombings and in another case for offence under Section 174 (intentionally failing to appear when legally bound to do so by a summons, notice, or order from a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code in Coimbatore.
Published – December 04, 2025 09:14 pm IST
