New Delhi - The founder of a banned radical Islamic group, Al Umma, and 68 of its members were convicted and a key accused political party leader was acquited on Wednesday by a lower court in India in connection with serial blasts in 1998 in Coimbatore that killed 58 persons, news reports said. Syed Ahmed Basha, the founder and chief of the group, and its general secretary, Mohammed Ansari, were convicted of criminal conspiracy, supplying and transporting bombs that went off in a series of 19 explosions in Coimbatore city in Tamil Nadu on February 14, 1998.
According to findings of a Special Investigation Team, the blasts were timed to go off during the visit by the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) deputy prime minister LK Advani.
The probe showed that the terror attack was carried out under the name "Operation Alla Ho! Akbar," with an aim to kill Advani.
The blasts injured 167 persons and caused loss of property worth about 3.5 million dollars in Coimabatore, which is the second largest city and about 470 kilometres south-west of Tamil Nadu's largest city and capital Chennai.
The court also acquited ailing People's Democratic Party (PDP) leader Abdul Nasser Mahdhani of all five charges, including criminal conspiracy with Basha to mastermind the blasts. He has been in Coimbatore jail for nine years, reported news agency IANS.
The PDP is a partner in the coalition state government in the southern state of Kerala. The Kerala assembly passed a resolution in 2006 appealing for his release.
Mahdhani organised the Islamic Sewak Sangh (ISS) as an answer to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which was banned in 1992 following the demolition of Babri Mosque, considered by Hindus to be built on a sacred site, in 1992, by fringe fanatics.
The trial for the Coimabatore serial blast case began in March 2002. The court heard testimony of 1,300 witnesses.
In the long drawn-out case 166 persons were accused and were kept in various jails in Tamil Nadu for the last nine years.
According to local police and investigations the bombings were in retaliation to riots in the city in which Hindu extremists and radical Muslim groups clashed with each other following the murder, in 1997, of a Hindu traffic policeman by a member of the Al Umma.
