CHENNAI: A gang on Tuesday hurled a low-intensity crude bomb packed with nails and ball-bearings (in pic) at a construction site at West Saidapet to scare away the builder, formerly a history-sheeter, owing to business rivalry and a long-running feud.
Sources said Jaga aka Jagan aka Jaganathan, (48) of Kumaran Colony, West Saidapet, once a history-sheeter, was building a residential apartment on Kambar Street in the neighbourhood.
Around 8 am, he visited the site and left after instructing the workers. It was then, the gang in a car bearing a Puducherry registration number and a sticker saying ‘Patta Kathis’ halted at the site and asked the building workers to tell them where Jagan was. One of the Jagan’s aides lunged to attack the gang with an iron rod and the gang retaliated with the bomb, which fell on a ladder and exploded. They did not throw the other bomb, which another gang member was holding.
Two persons, including a woman labourer, suffered minor injuries. The gang abandoned the attempt to find Jagan at the site after the local crowd began gathering.
On coming to know of the incident, Jagan lodged a complaint with Kumaran Nagar police, saying notorious gangster CD Mani and others were out to kill him.
CD Mani has a dozen cases, including three of murder, pending against him. He was detained under the Goondas Act four times and was last detained in 2013. His detention was set aside in 2014 and he went underground soon after.
A special team traced him to Puducherry a couple of weeks ago but in vain, since the history-sheeter had already shifted his hideout.
Jagan, also an associate of ‘Punk’ Kumar who was killed in a police encounter in 2006, has a long-running feud with Mani’s gang.