Twin train blasts rock Chennai central

Chennai: A young woman techie was killed and 14 other passengers sustained bleeding injuries when two bombs, suspected to be IEDs with timers, went off in quick succession in adjacent compartments of Bengaluru-Guwahati express train Thursday morning. The blasts happened at about 7.14 in S4 and S5 coaches, within five minutes of the train arriving here from Bengaluru. The impact caused some damage to S3 as well.

The deceased, Swati, 24, worked for software major TCS at Bengaluru and was on her way home at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. Her grieving parents rushed here and took the body to the native place by a government ambulance. She was to be married in two months. The injured, including a woman, were admitted in the Rajiv Gandhi memorial government general hospital across the road. All of them are stable, according to the doctors. They said most of the injured had pellet wounds and two suffered multiple fractures on legs.

(Read: Chennai blast kills Andhra Pradesh techie; 14 hurt)

Investigators recovered ball bearings and pellets, besides traces of ammonium nitrate, nitro toluene and sulphur from the blast sites. Preliminary investigation indicated that four men carrying two cloth bags had boarded S4 and S5 as soon as the train arrived. “Surveillance cameras have captured the visuals of them coming out empty-handed. We strongly believe they had left those bags under the seats in the two coaches and triggered the blasts from outside. We are examining what their motives could have been”, a senior police officer said, adding that three men have been detained for questioning.

Chief minister J Jayalalithaa in a statement assured the people there was no need to panic as security measures had been tightened. She ordered state crime branch CID police to probe the incident.