Hours before top BJP leader L.K. Advani resumed his Janchetna Yatra against corruption from Madurai on Friday, a high-intensity indigenous explosive was spotted on his convoy route near Tirumangalam on the Madurai-Tenkasi highway.
It was packed in two four-foot-long PVC pipes and found placed under a causeway across a stream at Alampatti on the highway.
Alampatti resident M. Selvaraj, 49, who happened to go to the riverbed in the morning, chanced upon a long wire concealed amid bushes. He alerted the local panchayat, which told the police, and the bomb squad was rushed there.
Following this, the intelligence agencies have ordered all state police units to send an advance road clearance team to sanitise the yatra route.