Police probing phone talk to ‘eliminate’ PM

Coimbatore, April 24

The police on Tuesday said they were examining a recorded telephonic conversation in which a 1998 serial blast convict is purportedly heard telling a contractor that he was planning to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, initial investigation suggests that Mohammed Rafiq might have told this to scare transport contractor Prakash, with whom he was purportedly speaking.

Rafiq was arrested last night after the recorded telephonic conversation went viral on social media and he was booked under Section 506 (i) (criminal intimidation) of the IPC, the police said.

Though the prime minister’s name was mentioned in the conversation, they said the preliminary interrogation of Rafiq suggested that the remarks were probably meant to scare the contractor and may not be a plot against Modi. The investigations would continue, they said.

The eight-minute long conversation, which was circulated on social media, involved Rafiq, who has completed a jail-term in the 1998 Coimbatore blast case and lives in Kuniyamuthur in the city, and a transport contractor, police said.

“The conversation mainly related to finances about vehicles. But suddenly the blast convict was heard saying ‘we have decided to eliminate (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi, as we were the ones who had planted bombs when (former deputy prime minister LK) Advani visited the city in 1998,” the police said.

The city was rocked by a series of bomb blasts in February 1998 in which 58 people were killed and property worth crores was destroyed. “I have many cases against me and have damaged more than 100 vehicles,” the man is heard telling the contractor during the conversation, the police said.

The city police formed special teams to investigate the recorded conversation and verify the genuineness of the persons in it, the police had said in a press release last night. The man was arrested based on the conversation, it said. — PTI