Bangalore Mirror reported on Saturday that an old newspaper used to wrap the explosive planted at Gate 1 of Chinnaswamy Stadium, and timed for 8.30 PM — when players like Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble were meant to exit — blocked the timer's needle and prevented the bomb from exploding.
The bomb, the Mirror report said, planted at Gate 1 on the day of the IPL match between Bangalore and Mumbai at Chinnaswamy Stadium on April 17 failed to explode because the paper used to wrap the bomb blocked the timer's needle.
The timer had been set for 8.30 PM when players and VIPs were scheduled to make their exit. Incidentally, this bomb was discovered a good 24 hours after two bombs had exploded outside the stadium.
“There seems to be a bigger design behind this. The bomb was made using ammonium nitrate and some explosive gel weighing two kilograms. It was tagged with two detonators and the timer was set at 8.30 pm. They had wrapped the explosive with several layers of old newspaper sheets, and a piece of paper got stuck near the needle of the timer and hence it did not explode,” a police officer who is part of the investigation team told Bangalore Mirror.
The match was scheduled to start at 4 pm (it actually began an hour late) and conclude at 7.30 pm. The awards ceremony and the press conference were slotted for the next hour. After that, the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Kevin Pietersen, Nita Ambani and Vijay Mallya were meant to leave through this gate.
The sleuths now believe that, contrary to their initial judgement, it was not an amateur job at all.
“More than 20 kilograms of ammonium nitrate were used to make the bombs. They have also used high quality gel to prepare the concoction. It is no doubt a professional job,” an officer said.
The mistake they did was in planting all the bombs at one go and without ensuring that there were no loopholes, the officer added. The two bombs that exploded that day injured 16 people, the majority of them policemen, says the Mirror report.
