Author: Johnson T A
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: July 28, 2008
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/341178.html
A black trunk containing explosive materials
and 32 live detonators, believed to have been planted by the perpetrators
of the serial blasts in Bangalore, has been recovered on the Bangalore-Mysore
highway nearly 60 km from Bangalore, providing more possible physical evidence
for the July 25 explosions in the city. The metal trunk was found lying below
a tree on the side of the highway on July 24. Channapatna police who confiscated
the trunk on Thursday afternoon kept it in a local police station and alerted
Bangalore after reports of blasts in the city emerged Friday.
The police suspect that the trunk could have
been dumped at the side of the highway after the manufacture of the concrete
bucket-shaped bombs that jolted Bangalore between 1.30 and 2.30 pm on Friday
afternoon.
A second theory is that the black trunk was
a bomb in itself that only exploded partially. However no timer devices were
found and 32 live detonators were recovered. No signs of damage were found
around the place where the trunk was discovered, sources said.
When the police and forensic experts examined
the contents of the trunk late on Saturday night, they found nearly 6 kg of
ammonium nitrate, the main explosive used in the devices found in Bangalore.
"The trunk had been tightly screwed shut and seemed to have opened upon
some sort of impact," a police official who examined the trunk said.
"It could have opened when dumped on the side of the road," the
official added.
While the trunk found at Channapatna weighed
a total of 33 kg, an unexploded cement bucket bomb discovered in Bangalore
on Saturday morning weighed nearly 8 kg with about 2 kg of explosive materials
packed in it. It also contained 10 live detonators in a small plastic box.
"There is a theory that two separate groups of people planted the bombs
along Hosur Road and Mysore Road," intelligence sources said.
Now, the police are looking at video footage
for the night of July 24-available from closed circuit television cameras
installed at over 40 traffic junctions in Bangalore-in an effort to identify
suspicious vehicles that could have carried the trunk or the devices. Investigators
are also looking at information from mobile phone towers for the areas where
the bombs were planted.