HYDERABAD: A powerful blast ripped through the city Police Commissioner's Task Force office here on the bustling Greenlands main road killing a home guard and another unidentified person on Wednesday night.

A constable on sentry duty was injured in the mysterious explosion that occurred at a stone's throw away from Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy's official residence. The police suspect that the civilian victim could have brought the explosive to the office of the Task Force, which investigates complicated criminal cases reported in the twin cities.

Though the theory of suicide bombing is doing rounds, no police official has confirmed this angle.

The blowing of the trunk of the civilian leaving only his head intact led to speculation about the suicide bombing. Going by the blast impact, explosives' experts suspect that it was high explosive, possibly gelatine. However, the method of detonation is yet to be ascertained.

Home guard A. Satyanarayana (45) apparently took full impact of the blast and had his torso ripped off. Sentry Venkat Rao sustained minor shrapnel injuries and is in a state of shock.

Roof comes off

The roof of the old building was blown off and glass display panes of nearby shops were broken under the shock wave of the blast.

Senior police officers are busy piecing together shreds of information about an unidentified person who visited the Task Force office around 7.30 p.m. on the pretext of meeting senior officials. The sentry told him that no one was available and that he could enquire from the home guard sitting near the hall leading to Additional DCP K.V. Venkat Reddy's room. Minutes later, the explosion occurred.

London reminder?

Another constable who was standing near the parked vehicles on the compound wall told his superiors that the `stranger' was carrying a backpack. "The explosion was very loud and it was as if the earth shook," he recalled. Panic gripped the locality, as an adjacent shopping mall and several shops were teeming with festival shoppers.

Utter confusion prevailed at the blast site for over an hour, as the police did not go inside the building. It was only after the arrival of the explosives' experts, did they venture inside and found the severed head of the civilian in Mr. Reddy's room.

Information Minister Mohd. Ali Shabbir and Swaranjit Sen, DGP, inspected the site. Till late in the night, Commissioner of Police Ajit Kumar Mohanty and other officials were camping at the site.

Efforts are being made to identify the `civilian' victim till late in the night. Police photographers shot pictures of the severed head and sent the prints to Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences where the sentry is being treated to know whether he was the same visitor who came to meet Task Force officials.

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