The most deadly terrorist attack executed by the ISI in south India was the bomb blasts in 19 locations in Coimbatore. It left 60 people dead and more than 200 injured on February 14, 1998.

These came some three months after 18 Muslims were killed in the city. The murders were allegedly unleashed by a section of the police in collaboration with some Hindu militant outfits. It followed the killing of a police constable, allegedly by three Muslim youths.

The first of the serial blasts on February 14 was at 1550 hours IST on Shanmugham road in R S Puram, barely 100 metres from the venue of an election meeting that was to be addressed by then Bharatiya Janata Party president and present Union Home Minister L K Advani.

Over the next 40 minutes, bombs went off on West Sambandam road, Gani Rowther street at Ukkadam, at a textile showroom on Big Bazaar street, a shopping complex near the main bus stand at Gandhipuram, the parking lot at the Coimbatore Junction railway station, the Coimbatore Medical College hospital, a travel agency owned by a local BJP leader on V K Menon road, a jewellery shop on Oppanakara street, a BJP election office in Ratnapuri near Sivananda Colony and a temple at Kurichikulam.

Several bombs that failed to explode were defused by the army's bomb disposal squads, the National Security Guard and the Tamil Nadu Commando School. An abandoned car laden with 70kg of explosives was discovered on East Lokamanya street in R S Puram, close to the BJP meeting venue.

The Muslim fundamentalist outfit, Al-Umma's founder-president S A Basha and 12 others of his organisation were arrested in Madras. Explosives and weapons were seized from Basha's house in Triplicane, Madras. Leaders of the Jihad Committee and the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam were also arrested in a state-wide crackdown.

Among those taken into custody were Jihad Committee president R M Haniffa, general secretary Mohammed Haniffa, student wing secretary Akram Khan, TMMK president and college lecturer M H Jawahirulla and treasurer G M Pakkar.

Their hideouts yielded a huge haul of explosives and deadly weapons: 210 gelatine sticks, 540 pipe bombs, 575 petrol bombs, 1,100 electrical detonators and a large number of knives, swords, pickaxes and sickles.

The investigators have concluded that the Muslim militants acted as the ISI's agents. Some of them had gone to Islamabad for training. Their aim: check the BJP's growing influence in Tamil Nadu.