Bangalore Blast: Destroyed bike to drive probe

The massive blast barely 50 meters away from the BJP office damaged six cars and three motorcycles with one of the motorcycles virtually obliterated.

The highly damaged motorcycle may have had an explosive device embedded into a portion of its chassis below the fuel tank and the whole bike may have acted as a device,sources closely involved in the investigations said.

The motorcycle in question was a TVS Suzuki Max 100 with the Tamil Nadu registration number TN 22 R 3769,the chassis number 1108F001568 and the engine number 1108M05647.

Of these numbers the registration number has turned out to be a fake one with Tamil Nadu officials reporting that the number belongs to a motorcycle of a different make – a Yamaha RX 135. “The unclaimed motorcycle that was used in the blasts seems to be a stolen one. The chassis number and engine numbers will now have to be verified with the manufacturers to track the users of the vehicle,” officials helping the investigation said.Officials said that the other identification numbers for the motorcycle did not appear to have been tampered with.

Pieces of what appears to be detonators were recovered from the crime scene. The explosive is suspected to be a sizable quantity of ammonium nitrate although this was yet to be verified by laboratory testing.

The device did not seem to have carried projectiles and was placed at a height. The ripping of the motorcycle under the force of explosion sent parts from it flying high in the sky and all around. Windows at a height of 40 feet from the ground were damaged and shrapnel traveled as far as 600 meters.

With the fuel tanks of the bike and nearby cars catching fire under the effect of the blast,eyewitnesses said it was only fire that they saw soon after the sound of the blast.

If the explosion is proven to be a vehicle-borne device then it would be the first time in recent years that such a device has been used in what appears to be a terror attack. Although some groups have reportedly being trained in using vehicle-borne explosives during arrests carried out in 2008,the expertise is not known to have percolated beyond one or two arrested individuals.

The choice of the site of the target,outside the BJP office,just ahead of the polls in Karnataka has been puzzling. In 2008 ahead of the polls in the state a group of right wing Hindutva activists had triggered a pipe bomb blast in an empty court room in Hubli a day ahead of the hearing of a case involving SIMI activists arrested in the Hubli region in early 2008.

The perpetrators of the blast were subsequently identified as being led by a Bajrang Dal man Nagaraj Jambagi who was arrested in the course of a dacoity case investigation. Jambagi was later killed in prison by his own associates in a dispute,according to the police.

The brunt of Wednesday’s blast near the BJP office was borne by a police truck on duty to secure the BJP office. As many as 11 of the injured were policemen.

Late in the evening NIA officials arrived from Hyderabad to participate in the probe. An NSG team is likely to arrive later as well.