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Madras police to shoot at sight saboteurs during combing operations

The Madras police will shoot at sight any person setting off or assembling an explosive during combing operations, city Police Commissioner P Kalimuthu said today.

He told newsmen in Madras that investigations into the seizure of 45 kg of bombs from six Al-Umma activists from a hideout in the city on March 17, would be handed over to the special investigation team of the state crime branch's criminal investigation department, who have been handling such cases since the serial bomb blasts in Coimbatore on February 14. He said a woman who was among the six arrested following the March 17 seizure, has been remanded to judicial custody the same evening. She was not interrogated as she was in the family way, he added.

Kalimuthu said the intense interrogation of the remaining five, which was going on, confirmed that all the six belonged to the banned Al- Umma fundamentalist group.

He said it had been confirmed that another woman who had left the hide-out along with her husband from where the six activists were nabbed, was not carrying any explosives, contrary to earlier reports.

Kalimuthu said before the arrest of the six Al-mma activists, 25 others owing allegiance to it and the All India Jihad Committee had been arrested, 13 of them under the National Security Act.

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