BENGALURU: The ‘lemon-shaped’ object that had exploded at Hubballi Railway Station on Monday morning, was a “crude explosive comprising ammonium nitrate, sulphur and carbon,” highly-placed sources told The New Indian Express.
Ammonium Nitrate is primarily used as a high-nitrogen fertilizer, and also as an explosive. Sulphur is used as a plasticizer in explosives. Its use is restricted to gunpowder.
“The initial investigation has revealed that they were crude explosives like field bombs, which are used by farmers to keep wild animals at bay. Animals eat them and they explode in their mouths leading to fatal injuries. The explosives were not improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The police are, however, investigating all angles,” the officer added. The explosives have been sent to the forensic science laboratory for examination.
According to sources, the bucket containing the explosives was found abandoned in the last coach of the general compartment of the Vijayawada-Hubballi Amaravati Express, which had arrived at Hubballi station at 11.17 am. The plastic bucket had ink scribblings reading ‘No BJP, No RSS’, ‘Kolhapur district’, ‘MLA’, ‘Gargoti’,‘MS State’, ‘Prakash Abhitkar’ on it.
“The train had terminated at Hubballi and a Railway Protection Force (RPF) officer, who was checking the empty train, found an abandoned bucket in the coach. He called the tea vendor Hussain Sab, whose stall was nearest to the coach, to take out the bucket and check the contents. The explosives looked like lemons. Hussain picked up one of them and squeezed it, when it exploded in his hand. As a result of the explosion, a glass pane of the station master’s office was also damaged,” the officer said.
Police are examining CCTV camera footage to find out who had left the bucket behind.“Police teams from Vijayawada and Kolhapur have come to help in the investigation, which is jointly being carried out by the Karnataka Internal Security Division, Hubballi police and the RPF,” he added.