Bangalore's tryst with terror on Friday afternoon claimed a woman's life and injured more than half-a-dozen persons, besides bringing all business-related activities to a grinding halt. The city witnessed a total of eight explosions at seven different places in a span of one hour.
Describing the explosions as `low intensity blasts', Bangalore police commissioner Shankar M Bidari said: "A preliminary analysis of the happenings indicate that the explosions were triggered to disturb law and order situation in the city and create scare among the people." He, however, refused to dub it a terrorist act and said: "It is premature to say that. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for these blasts. We are investigating from various angles."
The first blast according to police sources, took place near at en electric transformer near a shopping mall at Hosaguddadahalli (off Mysore Road) at 1:10 pm. However, that was not taken note of as passers-by presumed that the defeaning sound was caused by the transformer. The second blast took place at a bus stop at Madivala at 1:20 pm. The explosives, which were kept in a nearby drain and reportedly detonated by a timer-device, claimed the life of a woman who was waiting for a bus. "The impact of the blast was such that the ceiling of the bus stop was damaged. In the melee, a blunt object hit the woman, identified as wife of Ramesh, on her back. While she died on the spot, her husband and two others were injured," police officials said.
Subsequently, explosions occurred at the Corps of Military Police School and Centre on Hosur Road, Anepalya, Adugodi, near Mallya Hospital near Richmond Circle, Madivala junction and at Nayanadahalli (off Mysore Road). The explosives were kept by the roadside near drains, electric transformers and traffic junctions. "The miscreants have mixed urea with other substances to prepare these crude bombs, besides using gelatin sticks," Bidari said. All the bombs, which have been kept on the left side of the road, were reportedly planted 11:30 am onwards, sources added. While no one was injured in two blasts, two persons were almost deafened by the explosion at Adugodi and a motorist seriously injured near Vittal Mallya hospital.
The blasts have not only jolted the 55-day-old BJP government, which a fortnight ago had to grapple with communal violence in J C Nagar -Shivajinagar and other parts of the city. Chief minister B S Yeddyurappa termed the blasts as a `conspiracy by mischief-mongers to tarnish the image of his government.' Appealing to the people not to panic, Yeddyurappa said the police will track the miscreants at the earliest.
However, that did not bring down the anxiety level among the people. Minutes after the news about the blasts were picked up by the media, the communication lines got jammed in the city as people refused to take their fingers off their mobile keypads in a bid to contact their dearest ones. Desperate to make a call, people were seen standing in long queues in front of the coin-box telephone booths. This apart, the city also witnessed traffic snarls at several places as people tried to rush back home from their offices. Several IT companies, which anticipated trouble in the wake of the blasts, let their employees go home by 3 pm. Police sources maintained that the IT sector was not the target.
Police sources, however, admitted that casualties would have been high if improvised explsove devices (IEDs) or RDX-based bombs were used. "We are trying to analyse the motive behind these blasts," sources said. Though a section of the media tried to link the blasts to SIMI and Laskhar-e-Toiba, the police maintained that the way in which these blasts were carried out do not point out to the involvement of hardcore terrorists. "Nevertheless, these blasts look like a warning signal," sources added. The last time when Bangalore came under the cloud of terror was during the serial blasts at churches in 2000 and the firing during an international scientific conference at Indian Institute of Science (IISc) three years ago.
Yeddurappa's cabinet, which held a emergency meeting in the evening, announced the setting up of a special team to nab the accused.
