Bengaluru: The parcel was small enough to leave at a petty shop, and the torch inside it looked ordinary. Police now say the explosion on the fifth floor of an under-construction building on Jeremiah Road on 20 October was not terrorism but a family dispute, assembled from firecracker material and a YouTube tutorial.
The city police have arrested a 27-year-old bakery salesman and named his uncle, Allauddin M, as the intended target. According to investigators, the accused held a grudge over property and financial disputes, and over the breakdown of his sister's marriage.
The device was built in Raichur by one of two childhood friends who allegedly helped him. Material taken from firecrackers served as the explosive, rigged inside a battery with an electrical circuit and pellets, and then concealed inside a torch. The parcel was left at a petty shop near the building where Allauddin worked, and the accused then called him repeatedly, pressing him to open it.
Allauddin was at lunch. He asked a colleague to open the parcel instead. The device detonated when it was opened. Allauddin and Suraj Kumar, a security guard from Uttar Pradesh, suffered severe injuries.
The case had briefly pointed elsewhere. The use of an IED brought the National Investigation Agency into the probe, and Home Minister Priyank Kharge appealed to the public not to give in to rumours. City Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh said around 1,200 personnel worked in different teams to crack the case and announced a reward of Rs 3 lakh for those who did.
Two things in the investigation stand out. The first is how little expertise the plot required: a device assembled from what a firecracker shop and a phone screen could supply. The second is how the parcel was delivered, through a shop counter and a phone call rather than a direct approach, which is what kept the target from suspecting anything until it was too late.
Police have not said what charges have been invoked, or whether the two friends have been arrested. The injured guard's condition has not been disclosed.
The building on Jeremiah Road is in Pulakeshinagar, in east Bengaluru. Work at the site stopped after the blast.