Vital clue: Police recover 'hat' worn by cafe blast suspect

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: In a significant development to the Rameshwaram Cafe blast case in the city, the Central Crime Branch (CCB) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) initiated a joint operation and combed various places across Bengaluru in a bid to pick up clues regarding the movement of the suspect here.

According to sources, the search began late on Wednesday night and continued till the early hours of Thursday.

Following the search operations, the investigating officers found that the suspect after getting out of the cafe, boarded a Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) bus and then took a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus to escape the city.

On March 4, the Ministry of Home Affairs handed over the case to NIA after which the agency had been conducting simultaneous raids at various locations in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. A few men were picked up based on suspicion for an inquiry.

Around 12:55 pm on March 1, a low-intensity blast took place in the Whitefield's Rameshwaram Cafe that injured at least 9 people including the staff.

The police said that the explosion was triggered by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) connected to a timer.

The suspect had kept the device in a bag and left it near the hand-wash area in the Cafe.

CCB, NIA late-night operation

Gathering inquiries and scanning the surveillance footage from CCTV cameras provided the cops with crucial details about the movement of the suspect on the day he carried out the blast.

Footage retrieved by the police showed the suspect's arrival at a bus stop approximately 100 metres from the Cafe via a public bus around 10:45 am.

Subsequently, the suspect entered the cafe at 11:34 am, exited at 11:43 am, and then walked over a kilometre to another bus stop, where he boarded another bus to escape, but he boarded near Kadugodi.

The suspect then took another BMTC bus and reached Majestic following which he boarded yet another bus and got down near Rajajinagar Sujatha bus stop. Sources from the police said that the suspect boarded a KSRTC bus from Sujatha to reach Tumakuru and then to Bellari.

From there he travelled to Bhatkal via Mantralaya-Gokarna bus. Later it is suspected that he took a bus to travel to Kerala.

New footage of the suspect surface

Meanwhile, new video footage of the suspect with a backpack, wearing a full-sleeved shirt, cap, facemask, and spectacles moving in the bus has surfaced.

From the video, it seems that the suspect, after noticing the camera in the bus, moved in a direction where it did not cover him.

Also, an unverified photograph of the suspect wearing a T-shirt, without a face mask, cap and spectacles, sitting inside the bus is doing the rounds.

The elusive suspect left behind a crucial piece of evidence, a hat, in his hurried escape near Hudi. NIA officials discovered the hat during their investigation and are now utilizing it to trace the identity of the perpetrator.

NIA team sent to Tumakuru

As per the information obtained from the late night operations in Bengaluru, NIA has sent a team to Tumakuru district.

Sources said that a CCTV camera from the Tumakuru Smart City Limited (TSCL) had captured movements of a person resembling the suspect.

The officials are currently checking the surveillance cameras installed across bus stations, railway stations and other public places in Tumakuru.

On Thursday morning a NIA team reached Bellari and continued their search for the clues.