Cafe blast: Police probes biz rivalry, 'terrorising' of investors

New Delhi: 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.

MAIN SUSPECT YET AT LARGE, SIMILARITY WITH M'LURU BLAST BEING CHECKED

The manhunt to nab the suspect involved in the Rameshawaram Café blast has not yielded any results even two days after the incident.

Equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI), Bengaluru Police along with state Intelligence has been reviewing footage from hundreds of cameras situated across the IT corridor.

According to CCTV footage, the suspect appears to be a tall, healthy man aged between 30 to 40 years.

Sources said the police have used image-enhancing technology and have prepared a sketch of the suspect.

However, attempts to trace the suspect’s mobile phone based on the tower location, have reportedly not succeeeded. As per the police, the suspect appears to be highly skilled and possibly trained.

On Saturday, five individuals were detained for questioning. Recent updates indicate that the police have released all those detained.

Owing to similarities in the assembling of explosive, detonator, timer and mechanism used to explode the bomb,with the cooker bomb blast at Mangaluru on November 19, 2022, the police are also probing this angle, sources said.