CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu DGP C Sylendra Babu’s office on Saturday refuted BJP state president K Annamalai’s charge that the state police failed to act for four days despite receiving a specific terror alert from the Centre on October 18. There was no specific alert from the Centre, said a statement from Babu’s office.
The alert, dated October 18, was received by Tamil Nadu government only on October 21, it said and added that the alert was general in nature. It was intimated to field police officials the same day, it said. The statement also denied that there was any delay in referring the case to the National Investigating Agency (NIA).
The Coimbatore car bomb blast case has gained a political colour in the wake of governor R N Ravi blaming the state government for delay in handing over the case to the NIA and BJP state president K Annamalai levelling charges against senior state police officials for sitting on a terror alert from the Union ministry of home affairs for four days before intimating it to the police unit heads.
The statement from DGP office said there was no delay in referring the case to the NIA. The statement said in case a crime comes under the purview of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) or falls under the sections of the list mentioned in the NIA Act, the investigating officer would intimate the state government about the same for recommending NIA investigation. In the case of Coimbatore blast too, the procedure was followed and chief minister M K Stalin recommended transfer of the case to NIA, much before the Union government, on its own, could pass orders to take over the investigation.
Meanwhile, power minister V Senthil Balaji, referring to governor R N Ravi’s speech at a college about delay in handing over the case to NIA, said in Coimbatore on Saturday that governor should refrain from taking politics to educational institutions.
