Investigations into the Bengaluru serial blasts have revealed that the terrorists had a dry run of the blasts, which claimed two lives, in another town in Karnataka.
On July 24, a day before the serial blasts struck Bengaluru, an explosion took place at Channapattana, 70 kms from the capital.
Some residents of Channapattana, a small town famous for manufacturing toys, said that they had heard a loud explosion. But the police did not take the matter too seriously as they thought that it was some kind of quarrying activity.
However, investigations revealed that a bomb weighing 6.5 kgs was planted on a footpath but wasn't detonated properly.
The attention of the Bengaluru police was immediately drawn towards the incident at Channapattana. While investigating the case, the police recovered 16 kgs of ammonium nitrate, electrical detonators, steel containers, 8-inch steel pipes and over 2 kgs of bolt and nuts from a dumping yard near Lakshmi toy shop in Channapatna.
The police now say that the incident may have been a dry run for the serial blasts in Bengaluru. Investigators say that the explosive material, which was being brought from Mysore, had to be dumped on the highway to Bengaluru due to the heavy police presence there.
An investigating officer said that this indicated that more terror strikes were being planned in Bengaluru, but the last consignment of explosives couldn't reach the city.
The Special Investigating Team has so far detained 30 people for questioning. A team of the Bengaluru police also visited Hyderabad to question Yasir, the youth who was arrested recently on the suspicion that he was involved in terror related activities. Yasir is also the brother of Riazzudin Nasir, who was arrested in Karnataka recently on similar charges.
Nasir revealed the terror activities of the Students Islamic Movement of India, which led to the arrest of 10 SIMI activists in Indore.
The police are also probing the similarities between the serial blasts in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad. Preliminary reports suggest that there is a connection between the two incidents.
