Three persons, including a police constable and a woman, were injured when a low-intensity blast rocked the parking lot of the Faraskhana Police Station, located in the vicinity of the famous Dagdusheth Halwai Ganesh temple, at Budhwar Peth in downtown Pune on Thursday afternoon.
An Improvised Explosive Device (IED) kept in the luggage carrier of a motorbike parked in the two-wheeler parking lot of the police station went off at around 2.05 pm, injuring three persons and damaging three vehicles. Of the three persons who sustained minor injuries, one was admitted to a local hospital.
Though Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami refused to describe the Pune blast as a “terror act”, Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil said he suspected sabotage behind the incident. “Though it was a low-intensity blast, we have taken serious cognizance of the incident. …I do not rule out sabotage behind the incident. That’s why I have asked the Pune police to be on the alert. I am also requesting people not to believe in rumours but to cooperate with the police,” Patil said.
Confirming the use of IED in the blast, Pune Police Commissioner Satish Mathur said: “Preliminary investigations have revealed that small ball bearings and nails have been used in the IED. The motorbike in which the explosive was kept is a stolen vehicle. We have traced the owner of the motorbike,” Mathur said, Asked if the blast was an act of terror Mathur said: “We cannot rule out any possibilities at this stage.”
Within a couple of hours after the blast, the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) and forensic teams reached the spot. Investigators recovered ball bearings and nails used in the blast and are examining CCTV footage of the area.
Police have traced the motorbike in which the explosive had been kept, to a police constable DB Rajagi, a resident of Maan tehsil in Satara district of western Maharashtra, who had lodged a complaint of vehicle theft with the local police on June 25. An ATS team left for Satara to question the constable.
Given the modus operandi used in engineering the blast, its similarities to the four coordinated blasts that had rocked Pune’s busy Jangli Maharaj Road area on August 1, 2012 and the fact that Pune has over the years emerged as a haven for the Indian Mujahideen (IM) sleeper cells, the police prima facie suspect the hand of IM behind the explosion.
The parking is located exactly behind the Dagdusheth Halwai Ganesh temple, a landmark in the crowded old city. The temple has been on the radar of IM terrorists since 2010. So much so that a module of the IM - involved in the February 13, 2010 German Bakery blast in Pune which claimed 17 lives and left 54 others injured had carried out reconnaissance of the temple.
An IM operative Qateel Mohammed Jafar Siddiqui, who had allegedly made an abortive attempt to engineer a blast at the temple on the very day of the German Bakery blast, was murdered inside Pune’s high security Yerwada prison on June 8, 2012. Siddiqui had been booked by the ATS for his aborted attempt to engineer a blast at the Ganesh temple.
Incidentally, Thursday’s blast comes in the wake of lynching of a 28-year-old IT professional Mohsin Shaikh over Facebook postings denigrating Shivaji and late Sena chief Bal Thackeray allegedly by activists of the Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS) in Pune on June 2.
Shaikh was bludgeoned to death by the group while he was returning to his rented flat at Hadapsar after offering evening prayers at a mosque in the area. Investigations by the police revealed that Shaikh was targeted by the HRS activists as he was wearing a namazi cap.