Tamil Nadu Police have launched a terrorist investigation after a cylinder blast blew up a car near a temple in the city of Coimbatore on Sunday.
The explosion killed a 25-year-old engineer, who was questioned by the country's NIA anti-terror agency in 2019, over suspected links to Daesh terrorists.
A large consignment of explosives was also recovered after the police raided the victim's house during the weekend. Among the explosive material found at his home were potassium nitrate, aluminium powder, charcoal, and sulphur - items generally used for homemade bombs.
Tamil Nadu's chief of police Sylendra Babu told reporters that the engineer, named Jameza Mubin, was preparing "future sabotage activity" in Tamil Nadu.
Some of Mubin's associates and close contacts have already been detained, and the police are currently questioning them. More arrests are expected shortly.
Calling it a terror act, the president of Tamil Nadu's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), K Annamalai berated the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government led by Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin for "concealing info" about the incident.
"The cylinder blast in Coimbatore is not so much a 'cylinder blast' as a clear-cut terror act with ISIS links. Will Stalin come out in the open and accept this? Tamil Nadu's government has been concealing this info for 12 hours now. Is this not a clear failure of the state intelligence machinery and the DMK government?" Annamalai demanded on Twitter.
The state's BJP chief suggested that some terror organizations were still active in Tamil Nadu and called Stalin to take measures against them.
"The accused who died during the course of planning this attack had clear-cut links to ISIS and were handled from outside the country. Still, some of the elements are active on Tamil Nadu soil. Go mercilessly after these criminal cells. Stalin - please come out of hiding and confess your failure," he concluded.
*Daesh (also known as ISIS/IS/ISIL) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries