Bihar court blast: Maoist involvement suspected, say police

Patna: Following a bomb blast in Arrah’s Civil court on Friday in Bihar, where three persons were killed and 16 injured, police said that Maoists’ involvement cannot be ruled out.

A team of experts was rushed from Patna to investigate the exact nature of the blast that also a killed a police constable.

According to one of the police personal deployed said “A woman was seen talking on phone and when the prisoner van arrived she started to walk towards the van while still talking on her phone, blast occurred when the police constable tried to stop her”.

The additional director general of police Gupteshwar Pandey said “security has been stepped up in all the civil courts of Bihar and have also asked the security forces to keep sharp vigil in the state capital as well”.

Taking advantage of the ruckus created by the blast two prisoners Lambu Sharma and Akhilesh Sharma fled from the court premises. The officials indicate that the entire exercise was carried out to help the prisoners escape. Lambu Sharma is an accused in several cases of murder and blast. The source say that Lambu and his another associate Akhilesh has links Maoist links. Police investigating the blast case have found the mobile phone used by the woman from the scene of occurrence.

“We cannot rule out hands of Maoists in the incident”, one of the police official said. He however said that investigation in this regard has been initiated.

The chief secretary while talking to the media persons in Patna said that the bomb that was used by the woman seems to of low intensity. He however denied human bomb angle into the case.

The bomb triggered when the woman was trying to take it out. I have also been informed that two prisoners escaped from the court campus while they were being produced. Our forces are trying to trace their whereabouts.” Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar said.

Former Home Secretary RK Singh said “Prima Facie it doesn’t seem to be a terrorist attack, it seems that the blast was carried out in order to help prisoners escape from the court while they were being produced”.

A high level meeting was called soon after the blast in Patna. The officials who attended the meeting were Chief Secretary, Director General of Police and Additional Director General of police.

Blast in high security zone has raised many questions on the security system of the state government. Prior to this blast intelligence agencies had sounded an alert in the state keeping Republic Day celebration in mind. The IB had also alerted the state government to keep sharp vigil on the borders of Indo – Nepal.