Bangalore Blast: It was a pipe bomb, say experts

Mangaloretoday/DHNS

Bangalore,April 17, 2013: Preliminary investigations by the Forensic Science Laboratory personnel at the blast site in Malleswaram have confirmed that the explosive had been planted on a motorbike parked a few metres away from the BJP office.

Forensic experts found lithium and alkaline residues scattered around the site, an indication that the bomb was an improvised explosive device (IED) in the form of a pipe (pipe bomb).

 

 

 

Investigators said the pipe bomb was attached to the motorbike to make it look like a component. The explosive material used was ammonium nitrate, commonly used in stone quarries. Accessibility to the explosive was also easy, said senior police officials.
Forensic officials said the explosion was triggered by a battery-operated timer device. They also confirmed no shrapnels, pellets or ball bearings were packed into the IED, which might have caused maximum damage.

Sources in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said the evidence gathered at the scene of crime and the kind of explosive device used indicate the involvement of an amateur, local module.

One of the eye-witnesses, Vijayendra Rao, told Deccan Herald that the bomb-laden bike was flung several metres high as the explosion was triggered. The two-wheeler was blown to smithereens and its parts were strewn around for 10 metres.

The bike, an old 100cc blue Suzuki, carried a fake Tamil Nadu registration number TN 22 R 3769. Forensic experts said they have, however, found the chassis number - 1108F001568, a crucial clue.

Senior police officials suspect the perpetrators might have procured the motorbike from a scrap market.

They said two teams of Central Crime Branch officers had already been dispatched to the Shivajinagar scrapyard, and another team to JC Nagar and SP Road, as part of the investigation.

Unconfirmed reports said two traders in used vehicles from Shivajinagar were being questioned by the cops. However, senior officers denied it.

Sources said the KSRP men in the police van just next to the bike had observed two men parking the two-wheeler at the spot at around 8:30 am. The two men were not riding, but pushing the bike. Sources said based on the inputs from the two KSRP personnel, sketches of the two suspects were being prepared. Police have collected CCTV footages from Sai Apartments, a four-storey apartment complex in front of which the blast occurred, and from the BJP state head office a few metres away.

*  December 28, 2005
Firing on Indian Institute of Science (IISc) campus. Prof Munish Chandra Puri of IIT, Delhi was killed and four
academicians were injured.

* July 25, 2008
Serial blasts across the City. A woman was killed in one of the explosions at a bus stop in Madivala. More than 15 were injured in the other blasts.

*  April 17, 2010
Two bombs exploded outside M Chinnaswamy Stadium ahead of an IPL cricket match. Fifteen people were injured. Later,  a third bomb was
defused.