COIMBATORE, February 20: After meticulous planning and adequate precautions, a team of experts from Tamil Nadu Commando School assisted by NSG personnel exploded four bombs, which include two of the car bombs and two other bombs which were found near Devanga High School.It may be recalled that a car laden with bombs packed in moped side boxes was found parked in Lok Manya street in RS Puram, where BJP chief LK Advani was scheduled to address an election campaign meeting on February 14.
The bombs were carefully lifted and removed to Madukkarai shooting range from RS Puram in corporation lorries on Wednesday last.
On Thursday, team of experts led by IGP (Operations) Jagan Mohan Seshadri disconnected the wire and opened the boxes containing bombs at the Madukkarai range. Ivor Goldsmith of the National Security Guards was also assisting the team.
This morning, on the basis of security perceptions, it was decided to explode the bombs which were very complicated. Initially one of the bombs was set withinsand bags, a two hundred meter long wire was attached to the detonator and commandos along with media teams, took shelter under the rock and detonated the same.
At 11.43, the bomb went off, causing a thunderous noise which was even heard at Sundarapuram and Aatuppalam areas, which was nearly 6 km from the Madukkarai Shooting Range. Reverberations were reported even for one km radius by the public.
After having assessed the impact of the first box bomb, the personnel took adequate precautions by placing more number of sand bags and set two box bombs to explode them.
Similarly, experts detonated two box bombs by detonating them with a detonator which was attached to a 200 meter long wire. It exploded with a thundering impact, raising smoke and dust for over several hundred meters which was visible even from the city.
Later, Seshadri and his team inspected the site and assessed the technology used. They decided to take away the remaining four bombs to Chennai for further examination. The team safelyde-activated all the mechanisms in the bomb.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
