Kollam Collectorate blast: Kerala court sentences three to life term

Kollam court sentences three to life in prison for 2016 explosion; one acquitted, one turned approver.

The Kollam Principal Sessions Court in Kerala on Thursday (November 7, 2024) awarded life imprisonment to the three accused in the 2016 Kollam Collectorate explosion case along with a fine of ₹30,000 each.

The court had found Abbas Ali (31), Shamsoon Karim Raja (33) and Dawood Sulaiman (27), all residents of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, guilty of multiple charges punishable under sections that include 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt using dangerous weapons or means) and section 16(1)(b) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

A total of five persons were accused in the case and the fourth accused, Shamsuddin, was acquitted by the court due to insufficient evidence. Muhammed Ayoob, another accused, had turned approver and the verdict was pronounced by District Principal Sessions Court judge G. Gopakumar.

The three convicts were the members of Base Movement, an outfit that allegedly supports Al-Qaeda. They had used an improvised explosive device (IED) hidden in a tiffin box to orchestrate the low-intensity blast that took place on June 15, 2016 in the Kollam Collectorate premises. The IED was planted inside an unused four-wheeler of the Labour department parked near the Munsiff court and it was detonated with the help of a time device. Though there were no causalities, a person had sustained serious injuries in the incident.

The accused were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2017.

The prosecution argued it was a rare case where an explosion was carried out to to incite terror and maximum punishment should be awarded to the accused. The trio pleaded for leniency in the sentence pointing out that they have already spent eight years in prison. The accused were brought to the court from the special jail in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday afternoon.

During the investigation, it was found that Karim Raja had visited Kollam prior to the blast and took visuals and videos of the collectorate on his phone. The planning was done in Madurai. On the day of the blast, he reached Kollam in a bus to plant the device.