BANGALORE: Was the bomb scare on Diwali night at Chinnaswamy stadium triggered by an unreliable bomb detecting machine? Police sources say that the bomb detector being used at the stadium was the make rejected by the city police an year ago, as it was found wanting in many aspects.
What makes the bomb detector come under scrutiny is the fact that even the sniffer dogs, trained to detect explosives present in as low a quantity as 0.1 gram, failed to find it in Jammu and Kashmir cricketer Parvez Rasool’s bag.
Dogs can pick about 5,000 different smells, but they failed to detect anything in the stadium, said an officer of the bomb squad.
However, senior police officers refused to comment on the equipment unless they receive the bag’s FSL report on Monday.
City police commissioner Shankar Bidari said: “Since Friday midnight the stadium equipment is said to have indicated the presence of explosive materials at a distance of 300 metres. On Saturday morning, the stadium security informed the Cubbon Park police, and detained the bag owner for enquiry. We have sent the bag to the Forensic Science Laboratory, and cannot comment unless we receive the report.” Bidari, however, refused to comment on the reliability of the stadium bomb detector saying, “The equipment come from a reputed company, and we cannot comment without a thorough investigation.
There are suspicions that the bag could have been used for transporting explosives at some point of time, which will be confirmed only after the FSL report.” Police sources said that the Chinnaswamy stadium security was handed over on a contract to Brio Macro Security Pvt Ltd, a Hyderbad based company.
An investigating officer, who did not wanted to be named, said: “The agency had conducted a demo of their security equipment a year ago, suggesting that the police department use it for bomb detection. For various reasons it was not accepted by the state.” On Saturday, when the city police squad scanned the stadium it could not find any explosive substance.
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