Bengaluru blast | Business rivalry, polls, scaring investors: Cops focus on motive

As several investigating agencies struggle to crack the Rameshwaram Café blast case, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara has said that several angles are being probed as the possible motive. These include business rivalry, the impending Lok Sabha elections, and terrorising investors looking to put their money in the IT city.

According to the minister, eight teams are working on the case with the assistance of the National Investigation Agency, National Security Group (NSG), and Intelligence Bureau (IB).

The low-intensity blast took place at the popular Rameshwaram Cafe in Brookefield, East Bengaluru, on Friday (March 1), leaving 10 people injured. The prime suspect is a man wearing a cap, a mask, and glasses, who was caught on CCTV camera, but is still untraceable.

Lone-wolf attack?

According to a Times of India report, the city police have several reasons to believe that it was a lone-wolf attack. They believe the suspect made multiple recces of the café before planting the bomb. The explosive was not placed in a container — which would have increased the impact of the blast — but loosely placed in the backpack the suspect left behind in the café. The explosive, wrapped in tapes, contained ammonium nitrate besides nuts and bolts to cause extra damage.

According to the report, the man came by bus — Volvo KA 57-F-186 — which he boarded at Kundalahalli. He got off at CMRIT stop and walked to the restaurant. He left the café within minutes.

Business rivalry angle

Parameshwara said one of the angles being probed was to see if the blast was meant to terrorise Bengaluru in view of the impending elections. “Elections are approaching. (So, it is being probed) If any organisation is behind it, or if there are some other motives behind it to terrorise people to make Bengaluru look unsafe...,” the minister added.

“As many investors are coming here in view of a stable government, this might have been done either to stop investors from coming to Bengaluru or due to some other unknown reasons,” Parameshwara said.

The minister said business rivals may have done it out of jealousy. That is also one of the angles being discussed. The Rameshwaram Cafe has 11 units and the owners were planning to set up their 12th unit, for which advance deposit was also paid, he pointed out.

Speculations abound

“We will crack it (the case). We will not leave it. However difficult this case may be, our department will bust it,” he asserted.

The minister appealed to people to rely only on the statements issued by him, the police, and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and not on speculative ones.

To a question related to a pressure cooker blast in Mangaluru on November 19, 2022, Parameshwara said there was a similar assemblage of explosives and other equipment as in Mangaluru but that does not necessarily mean the same gang was behind the blast at Rameshwaram Cafe.

“The way the battery and timer have been used seems similar. We have to take it (investigation) forward. We don’t know whether the same organisation did it or the same people did it,” the minister said.

Low-intensity blast

He also said it was a low-intensity bomb, as the explosives used were of low intensity and even the quantity might be low.

Had the quantity been more, the intensity would have been higher, he observed.

According to him, there could have been casualties had the bomb gone off horizontally and not vertically. “I too visited (the site) ... and saw bolts and nails there. They all went upwards. If they had gone off horizontally, many people would have got hurt. It could have caused deaths too. Luckily, all of them went upwards...,” Parameshwara explained.

Lack of clarity

Speaking about the suspect, the minister said police have procured about 40 to 50 CCTV footage clips.

“There is information that he came by a bus...26 buses passed there around that time. We went through all the 26 buses. We have found the bus in which he travelled. He was wearing a cap, a mask, and glasses. We are not getting clarity there as well,” he said.

(With agency inputs)