Bengaluru Rameshwaram Cafe, rocked by IED blast, to reopen on March 8: CEO Raghavendra Rao

In a press statement issued on Saturday, Rao said, “As we face this challenging situation, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to the authorities for their support. We firmly believe that no force can dampen the spirit of our nation. We have decided to reopen our Brookfield outlet within a week of the unfortunate incident, which is on the auspicious day of Mahashivratri, the 8th of March (Friday). We extend a warm invitation to all authorities and customers to join us for our reopening. Let us unite in solidarity and demonstrate that together, we are unyielding in our commitment to moving forward.”

The Brookfield outlet is about a year-and-three-months old, while the cafe has its branches in three other locations in Bengaluru, including Indiranagar, JP Nagar and Rajajinagar. On the day of the blast, the founders continued operations in the other branches. According to co-founder Divya Rao, the Brookfield outlet has 150 employees.

One of the hotel staff, Farooq Hussain, suffered external abrasion wounds on his skin on the left side of his body, which doctors suggested may be due to the splintering of glass pieces or some other material that disintegrated during the explosion.

At least 10 people were injured following the blast at the restaurant near the hand wash area at around 1pm on Friday. According to preliminary investigation, the suspect, aged around 30, had visited the restaurant as a customer and ordered lunch. The CCTV footage shows the suspect leaving a bag, which reportedly carried a low intensity explosive, which detonated via a digital timer.

Police sources said they were probing CCTV footage from the cafe’s other outlets in Bengaluru to check if any attempt to target them had been made previously. Founders of the cafe reportedly said that earlier, unclaimed bags were found in the cafe’s other branches, which were then promptly handed over to the nearby police station.