The Hindu : Front Page : Embedded chips used as trigger in Bangalore blasts

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Embedded chips used as trigger in Bangalore blasts

K.V. Subramanya

IEDs could have caused high intensity blasts
Investigations on the right track: Commissioner

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Sukumaran, an official of the bomb disposal squad, who defused the bomb planted near Forum Mall.

BANGALORE: Even as the Bangalore police are trying to ascertain the people behind the serial blasts which rattled the city on Friday, investigation has revealed that embedded chips were used as a timer to trigger all the explosions.

Police on Saturday defused a live improvised explosive device (IED) at Koramangala in the city’s IT corridor and subsequently found that all the IEDs, which exploded on Friday, were planted at least three days in advance.

Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar M. Bidari told The Hindu that in the other recent explosions in different parts of the country cell phones were used as trigger.

An embedded chip can be programmed like a digital clock and it produces a fuse pulse that triggers the detonation.

“The IEDs had sufficient explosive material which could have caused high intensity blasts. We are trying to find out scientifically what reduced the impact of the explosion,” he said.

Mr. Bidari said investigations were on the right track but it would take time to confirm who masterminded and executed the blasts, in which a woman was killed and nine were injured.

He was tight-lipped to a query on whether any terrorist group was involved.

Live explosive

It was Rajamani, running a tea stall on the pavements on Audugodi Road in Koramangala, who alerted the traffic policemen on duty around 9.45 a.m. that a bomb-like object was seen near his shop. The policemen found two wires protruding out of a cement flowerpot-like object.

Not properly connected

Bomb Disposal Squad personnel defused the IED. The “flower pot” contained a plastic tin containing ammonium nitrate slurry, nuts and blots and cement chips.

The explosive did not detonate as the circuits were not properly connected, the police said.

Rajamani told the police that he found the pot behind the Hosur Road checkpost bus stop, close to his shop, on Wednesday night.

Hoping that he could use it as a stool, he picked the pot and placed it next to a few kerbstones near his shop, the police said.

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