Cafe blast: Police probing different angles including business rivalry

BENGALURU: Karnataka Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara on Sunday said business rivalry, impending elections and terrorising investors coming to Bengaluru in view of a stable government in the state are some of the angles which the police are working on to crack relating to the blast at a city eatery. The explosion took place at Rameshwaram Cafe in Brookefield in East Bengaluru on Friday. A man wearing a cap, mask and glasses is the prime suspect in the case and is still untraceable, According to him, eight teams are working to crack the case and they are accompanied by the National Investigation Agency, National Security Group (NSG) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) are assisting the teams.

Parameshwara said one of the angles being probed was to see if it was to terrorise Bengaluru in view of the impending elections. ''Elections are approaching. 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 might have done it out of jealousy. That is one of the angles, which is also being discussed.

He said The Rameshwaram Cafe has 11 units and the owners were planning to set up their 12th unit, for which advance deposit was also paid. ''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, 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 similar assemblage of explosives and other equipment as was in the incident in Mangaluru but that comparison doesn't 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.

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

If the quantity was more then the intensity would have been higher, he observed.

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

Speaking about the suspect, the Minister said police have procured about 40 to 50 CCTV footages.

''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, mask and glasses. We are not getting clarity there as well,'' he said.