The incident took place on 25 October, 2023, when a petrol bomb was hurled near Gate No. 1 of Raj Bhavan on Sardar Patel Road, Guindy — the main entrance used by the Governor and other dignitaries.
Published Nov 12, 2025 | 11:41 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 12, 2025 | 11:41 PM
Accused "Karukka" Vinod. (Supplied)
Synopsis: The incident took place on 25 October, 2023, when a petrol bomb was hurled near Gate No. 1 of Raj Bhavan on Sardar Patel Road, Guindy — the main entrance used by the Governor and other dignitaries. Police personnel on duty at the spot immediately apprehended the accused, identified as Vinoth alias Karukka Vinod, and seized two more unexploded petrol bombs from his possession.
The NIA Special Court in Poonamallee, Chennai, has sentenced Karukka Vinod to 10 years in prison in connection with the 2023 petrol bomb attack on the Tamil Nadu Governor’s residence, Raj Bhavan.
The incident took place on 25 October, 2023, when a petrol bomb was hurled near Gate No. 1 of Raj Bhavan on Sardar Patel Road, Guindy — the main entrance used by the Governor and other dignitaries.
Police personnel on duty at the spot immediately apprehended the accused, identified as Vinoth alias Karukka Vinod, and seized two more unexploded petrol bombs from his possession.
Vinod is a history sheeter and faces over a dozen cases, including one for hurling a petrol bomb in February 2022 at the state BJP headquarters in Chennai.
The case was later transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for further probe. The NIA filed a 680-page chargesheet against Vinoth in January last year under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Explosive Substances Act.
After nearly two years of trial, NIA’s special public prosecutor N. Bhaskaran argued that Vinoth had acted deliberately with an intent to endanger the safety of key leaders and create a security threat, urging the court to impose the maximum sentence.
Accepting the prosecution’s case, Judge S. Malarvizhi ruled that the charges against the accused were proven beyond reasonable doubt. The court sentenced Karukka Vinod to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹5,000.
An NIA spokesperson said in a statement in 2023, “This was the fourth such incident involving the accused. Previously, he had thrown petrol bombs at government establishments like the TASMAC (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation) outlet in T Nagar and the Teynampet police station, and also the BJP Tamil Nadu state head office in Chennai.”
The agency had alleged that Vinod’s motive was to overawe the constitutional authority of the state’s Governor.
“He had stolen petrol from a bike in SM Nagar, collected empty liquor bottles to fill them with petrol, walked up from Teynampet to Raj Bhavan, and hurled two petrol bombs at the Raj Bhavan gate at around 2:40 pm,” the spokesperson had said.
(With inputs from Subash Chandra Bose)
