Lunch-hour blast at Bengaluru restaurant leaves nine injured

Karnataka DGP Alok Mohan, who visited the blast site, said: “It would be premature to speculate on the cause of the blast without a report from the Forensic Science Laboratory.”

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, however, indicated the blast was caused by an IED. “I have spoken to the Home Minister and senior police officers. What they told me was that an unknown person carried a bag to the restaurant. He bought a token and had food.

Later, he left the bag which carried the bomb. The police are examining CCTV footage,” Siddaramaiah told reporters in Mysuru.

Asked whether it was a terrorist attack, the Chief Minister said an investigation is underway.

Later, the Bengaluru city police in a press statement said that the HAL Police have also registered a case under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) of 1967 and Explosives Substances Act.

A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from the agency’s Bengaluru office reached the spot soon after the blast and is currently assisting police in the investigations. The NIA is likely to take over the case next week, sources said.

The state government formed seven teams to identify and nab the suspect, who is believed to be aged between 30 and 35 years.

Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who visited the blast site in the evening, said the police have been given a free hand to apprehend the suspect. According to the preliminary investigation based on the CCTV footage, the man was seen with a bag containing the IED. “The accused had come for lunch at the restaurant. He had traveled by bus. He had placed a bag containing low-intensity explosives near a tree. He had timed the bomb and around 1 pm the explosion took place. …The entire episode including the facial features of the suspect has been recorded in the camera,” he told reporters.

The injured were identified as Farooq Hussain (19), who worked in the restaurant, and customers Swarnamba Narayanappa (49), Dwipanshu S (23), Mohan (41), Nagashree (35), Momi (30), Balaram Krishnan (31), Navya (25) and Srinivas (67).

Among them, Swaranamba Narayanappa, an employee of tech firm Microchip India Pvt Ltd, sustained the most serious injuries. She suffered around 40 per cent burns and is in the ICU at the local Brookfield Hospital.
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“She was out for lunch at the restaurant with colleagues when it happened. I saw her being led out in television visuals and learned of the incident,” said her husband Shyam Sundar.

Dwipanshu S did not suffer external injuries but was in a state of shock due to the sound, his roommate Saurabh said. “Dwipanshu works for Amazon and had gone for lunch,” he said.

Hussain, a migrant worker from Assam who was employed at the restaurant, suffered external abrasion wounds which doctors suggested may be due to glass splinters. “I cannot remember anything. There was some kind of an explosion,” Hussain said.

Another employee from Assam, who is Hussain’ room mate and was working in another portion of the restaurant, said he heard a sound and there was shattering of glass and smoke when he came out to the dining area. “We do not know what happened but there was a blast in a corner of the restaurant. One of our staff was injured,” said Gururaj, a manager at the restaurant.

Dr Pradeep Kumar, medical director of Brookfield Hospital said, “There are no life threatening injuries. One victim has 40 per cent burns and is in ICU. She will require plastic surgery. One of the injured has abrasions from possibly broken glass. A third injured has suffered a shock due to the sound but has no physical injuries. Seems like a low-intensity blast.”

Referring to the initial suspicion that it could have been a gas cylinder blast, Rameshwaram Cafe owner Divya Raghavendra Rao said: “This is not a cylinder explosion. Some eyewitnesses told me that a bag was kept near the hand-wash area of the restaurant…”

“We didn’t have any security measures in the dining space, except in the rear end of the hotel where supplies and essentials are loaded. The area where the blast took place is close to the hand-wash area and it is usually not crowded,” Rao said.

“We are cooperating with the Bengaluru police in all possible ways and they have full access to our CCTV cameras,” she said.

Meanwhile, BJP leaders trained guns against the Siddaramaiah government.

Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya said, “At first, they tried the narrative of cylinder blast. Now, they are trying the narrative of business rivalry. Why can’t the Congress Govt allow the investigation agencies to do their job? Why preempt? Why prompt? Vote Bank compulsions? CM @siddaramaiah must give a free hand to investigate and give clear answers to the people of Bengaluru.”