After what seemed like a lull before the storm, terror reared its ugly head again with a vengeance, this time in Pune, one of the few big cities in the country to have escaped a terror strike so far.
Around 7.15pm today evening, a powerful bomb ripped apart the age old German Bakery, a very popular eating joint in Koregaon Park, Pune. Initially, everyone thought it was a cooking gas cylinder, but once the enormity of the blast was visible, it was clearly obvious that it was a bomb.
Apparently, a waiter tried to open an unattended bag lying around, which exploded, killing around 8 people and wounding atleast 30-35 more. A TV grab also showed another unattended bag lying in an autorickshaw, though it wasn’t immediately clear if it contained any explosives.
One of the motives for choosing this location seems to be the presence of foreigners, who usually frequent the German Bakery. There is also the famous Osho Ashram nearby and a Jewish prayer house too (Chabad House). US terror suspect David Headley was believed to have stayed at the Ashram a couple of years ago, marking down the area as a possible target.
As of now there are just too many theories floating around, and what is irritating me the most are the comments by our ‘esteemed’ politicians, repeating the same old bullshit again and again, especially the one about having received intelligence reports, but without any specific location! WTF man, do they expect terrorists to hand over a list of their targets on a platter ??
At the moment, there is no complete list of casualties, though I did get an update on Twitter that an employee of JP Morgan, Pune was among the deceased. Will update as more information comes in.
Update: February 14 10.30am: The names of the deceased who have been identified are: Ankit Dhar, Anandi Dhar, T.Sundari, Shankar Pansare, Binita Gadani and Shilpa Goenka.
Update: February 14 7.35pm: The names of the other deceased: Gokul Nepali, Saeed Abdul Ghani, Nadia Materinia.
Update: February 17 3.15pm: The death toll rises… Abhishek Saxena, Aditya Jaiprakash Mehta.
Update: February 21 2.30pm: Two more.. Vikas Tulsiani ( a friend of a friend), and Rajeev Agarwal.
The body count now stands at 15. 🙁
