Mangaluru: Confession made by the Mangaluru airport bomb case suspect becomes a slap on the face of the Saffron Party as it had made an attempt to link a particular religion with the incident.
Police, BJP attempt to link religion with incident
It may be recalled that earlier, Karnataka Home Minister, Basavaraj Bommai gave an assurance to identify anti-nationals who are creating panic in the society. He allegedly tried to link a particular religion with the bomb case.
State BJP had also attack HD Kumaraswamy over the incident. It tweeted, “…Is there no appeasement politics by former CM @hd_kumaraswamy? Why cry for Jihadis? “.
However, after the suspect surrendered himself, Bommai denied linking any religion with the incident.
Meanwhile, Congress lawmaker, U.T. Khader said that the government had been trying to link the incident with the State of Kerala.
Accused surrenders before police
It may be mentioned that earlier the accused was arrested when he walked into the Karnataka Director General of Police (DGP) office on Wednesday.
According to the preliminary investigation, Aditya Rao, 36, a native of pilgrim town Udupi in the state’s coastal area, travelled to Bengaluru from Mangaluru in a lorry overnight and decided to give in to the police.
“Rao is said to be a depressed mechanical engineer and out of job. A couple of criminal cases were registered against him and he is on bail after two months in the Chikkaballapura district jail for allegedly making a hoax bomb call last year to Bengaluru international airport in Devanahalli, about 40km north of the city, which falls in the neighbouring district jurisdiction,” the official recalled.
Interrogation of the driver of the three-wheeler autorickshaw in which Rao was seen leaving the airport in a closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV) footage led the police to a hotel where the accused left some bomb-making material like white powder in the room he was staying.
“Rao told the police that he was employed in the billing section of the hotel he stayed since the last two months as he could not get a better job,” the official added.
Panic gripped Mangaluru airport at Bajpe on the port city’s outskirts when the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) found a black backpack abandoned at the airline”s check-in counter.
The bag was taken to an isolated place at Kanjur and detonated by the special bomb detection squad on Monday evening.
A massive hunt was launched to identify and capture the accused.
Accused handed over to Mangaluru Police
After the preliminary investigation, the accused was handed over to the Mangaluru police.
Mangaluru Commissioner of Police PS Harsha said, “Our Investigation team arrested Aditya Rao in Bengaluru in connection with planting of an explosive device at Mangaluru Airport on January 20. We produced the accused before Bengaluru first JMFC court and court issued transit warrant” .
Why Manguluru is sensitive?
After Nagpur, Manguluru has become the second headquarter of BJP. In the last year Assembly election, BJP won 90 percent seats from coastal Karnataka.
BJP is trying its best to divide the society on communal lines as a lot of Muslims from Kerala are doing well in business in Manguluru.