According to The Telegraph newspaper, investigations have revealed that the unclaimed backpack containing the bomb had been lying at the popular café for nearly 90 minutes. Pune police commissioner Satyapal Singh blamed bakery staff for failing to pay attention to it. [break]
The backpack was noticed by Nepali employee Paras just before it exploded.
“It (the bag) lay there for not 10 or 15 minutes but more than one-and-a-half hours, and yet nobody bothered to notice it,” Singh told a peace rally organized by a social foundation to mark one month after the blast.
The Pune police chief added that some customers had informed cashier Praveen Pant about the suspicious bag. Singh claimed the cashier neither did anything about it nor informed the police.
Singh said the improvised explosive device, containing a mix of RDX, ammonium nitrate, and petro-hydrocarbon oil, exploded 20 minutes after Pant was informed.
“If the German Bakery employees and its patrons had been more alert and had they informed the police, the blast could have been averted,” he said.
German Bakery manager Gopal Karki said it was not proper to blame his staff.
“We are trained to make and sell bread and cakes. We cannot read the faces of our patrons. Many of our customers are Osho disciples who are into meditation. Every day, at least two or three people forget their bags. We even created a lost-and-found baggage counter. It is wrong to blame us. But now that we know there is a threat, we will take adequate security measures,” he said.
Since the backpack was kept below a table, several of the injured suffered severe wounds below the waist, leading to limb amputations. The death toll later rose to 17 and 60 others were injured.
A month on, Karki and German Bakery owner Smita Kharose are still waiting for the police to hand over the premises so they can reopen the café, the newspaper reported.
“I phoned the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) officers yesterday, but they are not saying when they would give back the place. It will cost us a lot of money to reopen it as almost everything is destroyed,” Karki said.
The Kharose family has asked the government for Rs 25 lakh in compensation but it is yet to arrive, the paper added.
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