Five labourers were injured in a powerful IED (Improvised Explosive Device) bomb blast on Wednesday near the gate of Manipur University in Canchipur.
The bomb was planted by unidentified persons inside a drum. It exploded around 4:20 in the evening. The injured persons were rushed to Regional Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital for treatment.
According to eye-witnesses Maniton Singh, a mason labourer and Bijen, a JCB excavator, the blast took place when they noticed a plastic bag inside a drum and threw it away on suspicion.
"I was trying to remove the drum in which I saw the plastic packet falling off the drum. Then, I took the drum a bit farther away and came back and picked up the plastic packet. When I picked up the plastic packet and it felt heavy, I opened it and saw a tin-like object and suspecting it was a bomb, I left there. Then I informed my elder about it," Bijen said.
"When the blast took place we rushed inside the temporary shed. Romesh (a labourer) was trying to throw the bomb at a safer place in which the blast took place and got seriously injured on his face," Singh said.
Further, three lecturers of Royal Academy of Law, who came to submit documents at Manipur University at the time got injured by the splinters.
