Seventeen persons, including nine police personnel, were injured when two low-intensity IEDs went off outside the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium ahead of the IPL match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians here on Saturday afternoon.
The police found a third device with 3.2 kg of explosive material, a timer and a battery, at Gate 8 when the match was in progress, and defused it.
The blasts caused by the improvised explosive devices surprisingly caused little panic among the spectators who had packed the stadium to capacity to watch the last league match here. However, the match, scheduled to start at 4 p.m., began an hour late.
One of the IEDs went off around 3.15 p.m. at Gate 12 on Cubbon Road, where hundreds of spectators had gathered to enter the stadium. Fifteen minutes later, the other explosion took place on the footpath in front of the State Police Wireless headquarters near the Anil Kumble Circle, close to the stadium. Reports indicated that the police defused the third explosive at Gate 8 on Queen's Road around 7.30 p.m. “We were all jolted by a loud blast and people ran helter-skelter. There were more than 500 people in front of Gate 12 and adjacent Gate 11,” said Zabeeulla, a water vendor in front of Gate 12. The authorities immediately closed the two gates, and shifted the injured to hospital, he said.
The first IED, wrapped in newspapers and plastic sheets, was placed on a six-foot-high compound wall adjacent to Gate 12. The protective tin sheets on the wall, a flex banner and a portion of the wall were ripped apart. The second explosive, kept hidden in a shrub near the Anil Kumble Circle, did not cause any damage.
Police Commissioner Shankar M. Bidari said the decision to go ahead with the match was taken as about 20,000 spectators were already in the stadium, and anti-sabotage checks had been conducted inside. Two cases have been registered.
Keywords: IPL, explosion, Chinnaswamy stadium
Scary indeed! This bomber' has gone on record to say that there'll be an imminent blast in Kerala too! And that adds fuel to our fears The pic you've put up represents the spirit of all those Bengaluru' professionals! Perhaps a stable WiFi/WiMAX network in Kerala would help people work from home/elsewhere more and thus reduce their proximity to potential blast sites!
The police took a huge risk when it allowed the IPL to go ahead with the match after the bomb blasts. It would not have been possible to sanitize the stadium in the time available. If the police took this decision fearing a stampede if the match is cancelled, one can understand. But if it was because of pressure from IPL authorities, it should be considered a grave error. By the way, does the police have a well laid out plan to evacuate the stadium in an orderly fashion in an emergency situation? An enquiry to find out shortfalls if any in the security system and emergency handling systems is absolutely necessary. Unfortunately senior police officers were talking only about nabbing the culprits and not about what went wrong with the security system. Surely it was a security failure. The police officers concerned have to answer for it.
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