On Saturday, November, 19, an auto-rickshaw exploded under mysterious circumstances in Mangaluru, Karnataka’s coastal town. Soon after, the DGP of Karnataka resorted to Twitter to announce that the explosion was not an accident but an ‘act of terror.’
“It’s confirmed now,” said the Director General of Police (DGP) in a tweet. “The blast is not accidental but an act of terror with intention to cause serious damage. Karnataka State Police is probing deep into it along with central agencies.”
Visuals from the site show the auto-rickshaw blowing as it came to a stop on a road near a building under renovation. According to accounts, a passenger was carrying a plastic bag that caught fire and spread throughout the vehicle. As per sources cited by the Times of India, the autorickshaw included the remnants of a pressure cooker and objects like a gas stove burner.
The Mangaluru Police Department stated that they are conducting a comprehensive investigation and examining the contents of the passenger’s luggage in the auto. A forensics team has taken samples from the scene.
“Around 5.15 pm, fire was spotted in an autorickshaw. The driver has said that fire was spotted inside a bag carried by the passenger. The driver and the passenger suffered burn injuries. We have shifted them to a hospital,” said Police Commissioner N Shashi Kumar.
Coimbatore car blast
A 25-year-old man died on October 23 in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, after an LPG cylinder in a vehicle exploded in the communally sensitive Kottaimedu region. Following the incident, Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party president K Annamalai asserted that it was not an accident, but rather a planned terror attack with ties to the Islamic State.
It is notable that earlier it was thought to be a simple cylinder blast case, but later terror angle emerged in the incident, after which the case was handed over to the NIA. The deceased in the Coimbatore blast was identified as Jamesha Mubin, a resident of Kottaipudur, near GM Nagar in Ukkadam.
OpIndia has reported how Jamesha Mubin and his accomplices planned the Easter blast in Sri Lanka-style bombings and how they are allegedly linked to the Islamic State and the mastermind of 1998 serial blasts in the city.