Blast in Bengaluru’s Church Street, 1 dead, Another Injured

mangaloretoday.com/ NDTV

Bangalore, Dec 28:  One person died while another was injured in an explosion triggered by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on Sunday in front of a popular restaurant on a busy road in Bangalore.

The blast occurred around 8.30 pm near Coconut Grove, a famous restaurant on Church Street, close to the fashionable Brigade Road.

A man and a woman were hit by the shrapnels and were rushed to a nearby hospital, City Police Commissioner M N Reddi told reporters at the site, as police cordoned off the area.

The woman identified as Bhavani succumbed to her injuries while the other person is reported to be out of danger.
 

 

 

 

The police said it was a low-intensity blast from an Improvised Explosive Device, which was filled with shrapnel. The bomb had apparently been placed in a drain on the roadside.

The forensics team has been rushed to the spot.

"Spoke to Karnataka CM Shri S Siddaramaiah regarding the Bangalore blasts. He apprised me of the situation. Centre ready to provide all help," tweeted Union home minister Rajnath Singh.

 

Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda, who represents Bengaluru North in Parliament, has rushed to the blast site. "I request fellow Bengaluruians not to panic. We r with u (sic)," he tweeted.

The police, which also requested for calm, said the situation was under control. Additional police forces have been mobilised in the city, where the threat perception had been high in view of the year-end festivities.

Over the years, Bengaluru has been subject to several blasts, one of the worst being the serial blasts of 2008 in which one person died and 20 were injured.  The last attack took place in November 2013 outside the state BJP office, in which 16 people were injured.

Earlier this month, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, a young engineer from Bengal who was working in the city, was arrested for allegedly running @shammiwitness, a pro-Islamic State twitter handle.

Additional police forces have been mobilised in the city, where the threat perception had been high in view of the year-end festivities.

Requesting the people for calm, the police said the situation was under control.