On Valentines Day in 1998, L.K. Advani, then BJP president, was scheduled to address a Lok Sabha election rally in Coimbatore. Before he could make a pitch for winning the hearts of the people, 13 bombs exploded at 11 places killing 46 persons and injuring over 200 others. The textile city was already communally tense with the killing of 18 Muslims in the wake of the murder of a police constable, Selvaraj, nearly three months earlier in November 1997. The Al-Umma, an Islamic fundamentalist outfit, had masterminded and executed the bomb explosions.

The maimed, bleeding victims were being rushed to hospitals and Mr. Advani was escorted to safety. Amid the tension in the air, attention shifted parallelly to East Lokmanya Road, R.S. Puram, a crowded residential locality in the city, where a c

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