Man killed in car explosion in Coimbatore

Chennai, Oct 23 (IANS) A man was killed when the car he was driving exploded near Eswaran temple in Coimbatore's Ukkadam on Sunday morning.

Ukkadam is a communally sensitive area of Coimbatore and police have commenced investigation into finding the identity of the deceased person.

Police said that on preliminary investigation it was found that a gas cylinder in the car had exploded leading to the vehicle breaking into two. The car had two gas cylinders, and one of them exploded.

The investigating officer told IANS that the car was registered in Pollachi and efforts were on to trace the owner of the vehicle to get further details on the deceased person.

The officer also said that all roads leading to Kottai Eeaswaran temple were blocked and investigated.

Coimbatore city police commissioner, V. Balakrishnan told IANS that bomb squads and fingerprint experts have been pressed into service. He also said that there were no inflammable objects in the car other than the two gas cylinders.

Coimbatore is a highly sensitive town in South India and 58 people had lost lives and more than 200 injured in a serial bomb blast on February 14, 1998. 12 blasts took place in 11 places in the city and were aimed by Islamic fundamentalists at the then Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani. The late arrival of his flight to Coimbatore on that day saved the Deputy Prime minister. The Coimbatore bomb blasts have always been seen as a dark day in the history of the city which is a bubbling commercial area of Tamil Nadu.