Police recover more explosives near Bangalore stadium

Some explosive materials were recovered from near a gate of Chinnaswamy stadium — near the site of two low intensity blasts — a few hours after an unexploded crude bomb was detected at M.G. Road area of the city Sunday morning, police said.

“Besides the unexploded bomb, found some 150 metres away from the stadium, some explosive materials were also found near gate number one,” Police Commissioner Shankar Bidari told reporters here.

The explosive materials were concealed in a flex column and did not have a detonator or timer, he said. “We discovered it while searching all the flex boards” a senior officer said.

“There are over 1000 flex boards near the stadium and in the vicinity and we are checking all the flex boards around the stadium and 500 metres away. Each flex board is being thoroughly checked,” he said.

The explosive material was found when the flex column was opened during search operations. It appeared that the explosive had been stuffed through the bottom of the column, he said, adding that the material would be subjected to chemical analysis.

Police began combing operations in the area and were checking all billboards after two low intensity crude bombs exploded outside the stadium minutes before an IPL match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians was to begin on Saturday, leaving 17 people injured.

At least eight to ten people are being questioned in connection with the explosion, police said. However, no arrest has been made so far. “The interrogative process is very much on,” they said. Meanwhile, police have tightened security in and around the area.

Bomb disposal squad were conducting combing operation and sniffer dogs have been pressed into service to detect suspicious objects.

Pune blast: Two persons detained

Two persons with suspected links to Indian Mujahideen were detained by police early Tuesday morning in connection with the February 13 German Bakery blast here.

The suspects were picked up from Janwadi area in Pune and Kudalwadi in the neighbouring industrial township of Pimpri, police sources said.

One of the suspects who were nabbed from Kudalwadi area is believed to have been associated with Indian Mujahideen leader Riyaz Bhatkal during his stay here, they said.

The other suspect from Janwadi locality was reportedly associated with Shabbir Gangawali, a cleric linked with Indian Mujahideen. He was also involved in a fake currency racket.

Pune Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh had on Monday said that investigations into the blast which left nine dead and 60 injured was on the “right track”.

Chidambaram denies intelligence failure

Dismissing "intelligence failure" in the Pune blast, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Sunday said the terrorists have hit a "soft target" like the German bakery which is frequented by foreigners and Indians alike. 

He maintained that the "hard targets" like the Osho Ashram and the Jewish Chabad House located near the bakery had been surveyed by U.S. Lashker-e-Taiba suspect David Headley during his visit to India and the area was "in the radar" of security agencies for some time.

"But apart from hard targets, there are soft targets... All these (the German bakery where the blast took place yesterday and an Italian restaurant nearby) are soft targets where foreigners and Indians congregate especially during the peak hours," he told reporters here after visiting local hospitals to meet the injured in the terror attack.

The Home Minister said the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad has taken over the case and constituted teams to investigate the blast.

He announced a compensation of Rs. five lakh to the families of those killed in the attack.

'Bomb was kept in backpack'

After an early morning visit, Mr. Chidambaram told reporters that the terrorist who brought the bomb to the German bakery on Saturday evening may have posed as a customer.

“The bomb was apparently planted in a backpack and left there. The person apparently came there as a customer, unlike the usual gun-wielding terror attacks,” he said.

Mr. Chidambaram said forensic experts were trying to determine what explosives were used and how the bomb was triggered.

"All the information available to us at the moment points to a plot to explode a device in a place that is frequented by foreigners as well as Indians,'' Mr. Chidambaram said.

The deafening blast also injured nearly 60 people, some of them critically.

Unless these soft targets also adopt strict security measures, it would be difficult to detect things, he said.

He said whether the German bakery had put in place any such measures would be probed.

It was the worst terror attack in India after November 2008 when a group of Pakistani terrorists went on a killing spree in Mumbai leaving 166 Indians and foreigners dead.

11 people killed, over 40 injured in Karachi blast

Eleven people were killed and over 40 others, many of them women and children, were injured when a blast occurred near a bus taking a group of Shias to a religious procession in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi on Friday.

The explosion occurred on Shahrah—e—Quaideen, a key thoroughfare in the city, at 3.05 PM.

Simi Jamali, a senior doctor at the Jinnah Hospital, said the they had received 11 bodies and over 40 injured people.

There was confusion over the nature of the blast.

TV news channels quoted witnesses as saying that a motorcycle-borne suicide bomber rammed into the bus.

However, Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed said initial investigations had indicated that an explosive device planted in the motorcycle was triggered by remote control as the bus was passing by.

Mr. Ahmed appealed for calm and urged Shia mourners to go ahead with the main procession marking the ‘Chelum’ or 40th day of the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Hussain.

He said the blast had occurred at a considerable distance from the venue of the main procession and might have been aimed at diverting the attention of the security forces.

Ambulances and rescue workers rushed to the site and ferried bodies and the injured to nearby hospitals.

Security forces cordoned off the area and gathered the pieces of the motorcycle believed to have been used in the attack.