PATNA: Security was beefed up in the Buddhist pilgrimage town of Bodh Gaya in southern Bihar on Saturday after a low-intensity crude bomb exploded and two IEDs were recovered near the Kalchakra grounds on Friday night.
With Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama camping in the town and hundreds of foreign devotees present there to listen to his discourses, recovery of the explosives sent Bihar’s security apparatus into a tizzy. Presence of the crude bombs in this high-security zone indicated the handiwork of a terrorist outfit keen to inflict damage during Bodh Gaya’s peak tourist season and ahead of Republic Day, said senior police officials.
National Investigation Agency (NIA), which was handed over the probe, sent a team, including an explosives’ expert, to Bodh Gaya on Saturday. Prior to this, a forensic team had reached from Patna to assess the crude bombs, which weighed about 10 kg each, said sources.
“Two suspected devices were recovered outside the Kalchakra grounds. We secured them with the help of our experts and took them immediately to the banks of the Falgu river in order to ward off damages in the event of their explosion,” said Magadh range DIG Vinay Kumar.
Upendra Kumar Rai, a constable of Bihar Military Police (BMP) deployed outside the Kalchakra grounds, was the man who first saw the plastic bags in which the crude bombs were kept and alerted senior officials.
“I saw the bags and asked a sweeper to see what was inside. The sweeper peaked in and said that there were very heavy objects with wires attached to them. The bombs’ impact area appeared to be 150 metres,” said Rai.
A low-intensity blast was reported opposite the Kalchakra grounds in a flask kept under a generator at a tea shop at 4.45 pm on Friday, said NIA in a statement. Bihar police officials, however, did not mention this occurrence.
Footage obtained from CCTV cameras have caught three people in suspicious activities, said Bihar DGP PK Thakur. “We are examining the CCTV footage and trying to get more information about these people,” he added.
With the recovery of the two crude bombs reviving memories of the serial blasts in Bodh Gaya on July 7, 2013, the Bihar government sounded a high alert across the state. Ten bombs had exploded in 2013 in and around the Mahabodhi Temple complex and five people, including two Buddhists monks, were injured.