Bengaluru cafe blast: Terrorists planned to target IT parks, say sources

Bengaluru, April 16 (IANS) The probe in the Rameshwaram cafe blast case has revealed that the initial plan of the terrorists was to explode a bomb on the premises of an IT park in the tech corridor of Bengaluru city, sources said on Tuesday.

The arrested men have also confessed that because of the high security, they could not plant the bomb on the premises of the IT parks.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested suspected bomber Mussavir Hussain Shazib and mastermind Abdul Matheen Taha recently in Kolkata.

Sources said that the suspected terrorists wanted to target one of the IT parks in the Whitefield IT corridor initially to hit the image of Bengaluru known as the IT capital of the country and draw international attention.

The most prestigious and one of the oldest International Tech Park Bengaluru (ITPB) campus in Bengaluru is located in Whitefield. Thousands of software professionals work here and it is considered an icon of India’s IT success story.

Many more IT companies and IT parks are located in the region. However, as the safety and vigilance levels are like that of the international level in ITPB and other tech parks, the suspected terrorists could not plant bombs in any of them. The sources said that the suspected terrorists also conducted research to plant bombs in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) of major cities in the country.

The suspected terrorists wanted to target techies and create terror in the mindsets of software professionals. The accused knew that such an incident would dent the image of the country at a global level.

After failing to sneak inside the IT parks, the suspected terrorists worked on a plan to target techies. The Rameshwaram cafe drew their attention as it was located in the tech corridor Brookfield locality in Whitefield. The name ‘Ram’ in Rameshwaram cafe also drew their attention and was one of the reasons to target the cafe. A large number of techies visit the cafe and terrorists decided to plant the bomb there, sources explained.

The suspected terrorist Mussavir had visited the cafe on March 1 and planted the low-intensity Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on the premises. Several staff members were injured, some of them grievously, in the blast, which caused extensive damage to the property.