Bangalore Bomb Blasts
It was a heavy buffet lunch at South Indies on Friday noon. Having done with the lunch by 2PM, we started back in our car to our office in Koramangala. We reached Indira Nagar, when we got a call from Bij. "Get back soon. There has been some unforeseen incidents here. 3 blasts have been reported. One each in Madiwala, Adugodi and in Mysore Road" These were early signs of things to come. We hurried back to office. The news dint seem to have spread to all parts of the city. It was hardly 30 mins from the blast time. The traffic on the roads was normal. And we couldnt see any cordoning or traffic restrictions during our return trip. I alerted all the friends thru sms to be safe.
We reached office by 2.30PM, and greeted by a group of anxious co-workers. Some smiles, some with eyes wide open. We exchanged the news bits. When we got back to our desks, news started pouring in. With every 5 mins, somebody standing up and announcing "one more blast", "one killed", "traffic diverted in silk board area" and the likes. Soon, an organizational announcement came through the PA system informing us about the happenings, and requesting us not to panic. By 4PM an email announcement came from the security desk. Ppl started moving out to their homes. But the security did not allow anyone out, in an act of caution. But very soon, they got green signal, and the willing people were allowed to leave. The security gave traffic updates to all.
We too left the office by 5.15PM. It was a good excuse to leave early on a Friday evening. But a bigger reason was to reach home safely. Reached home by 5.30PM. Ensured that ppl who left along with me reached home safe too...
As we all saw and heard in TV, all the blasts were low intensity and not really intended to take any lives. The blasts dint have any effect on anything at all. Situation was soon back to normal, after the initial set of rumours settled down. Traffic on Hosur Road proceeded as normal. All the interstate travel buses operated as normal.
No conclusion yet, on who did this, or what the motive was. But a few rumours still floating around:
1. Terrorist groups trying to destabilize Bangalore with their main target, the IT.
But this sounds nonsens. No terrorist group would want to play games with bombs, the kinds we get during Diwali.
2. Miscreants trying to defame the BJP government.
This is the claim by the government itself. No better ways to defame ?! How will a mini-blast defame the government ?
3. An ill-effort of local Kannadigas to kick out non-Kannadigas
The root reason for this argument is that the blasts seem to have happened in comparitively densely populated non-kannadiga areas. Madiwala is one for sure.
4. A warning of things to come...
Why would somebody want to warn if their intention is not clean ?!
One thing is for sure. There has been a fair amount of planning behind the serial blasts. 7 blasts in 15 mins proves this. And it surely would be a fairly big team behind this. The blast sites are not very near to each other...
Got calls from home, from unc, from cousins.. The network was congested for a while. But sms was going thru. And calls were going thru too, on a 3rd or 4th try. (With vodafone, this is like any other day). There were questions on whether the network was jammed on purpose. But this shouldnt be true. I had coverage throughout, and I was getting calls/sms very often. And I could make calls with not much of diffuculty.
On the 2nd day, I had to go to Malleshwaram to get my camera back from service centre. Gasper and I started by around 12.15PM from home. Stopped at a tea stall, where we were told that a high intensity bomb was defused at Forum Mall in Koramangala. That comes in our route to Malleshwaram! We opted to take the same route, unless interrupted by the police. We shot this video of the Madiwala Blast Site:
There were outdoor unit vans of all major news channels - Times Now had their unit van parked virtually inside the madiwala bus stop. NDTV van was on the right hand side of the road. Not very far, we could find the unit vans of UTV and Zee. A good harvest day for the news guyz!
And this is the Forum Mall video, minutes after the reports of bomb defusal came in:
The city, which was once considered a safe city is now shaken a bit. But not to the extent to create panic among the citizens. The news channels tried their bit to create panic, by repeatedly telecasting the same old 2 min clip they had, and every now and then saying "Do not panic" blah blah. The expression on the news reporter would have scared you slightly to a greater extent than seeing the blast site in person!
Today is a normal day here. With schools open. Shops open. Malls open. Everything normal.
For the record, on the way, we covered 3 hot spots - Madiwala, Forum and Adugodi. Hmm.. Quite an impressive record!
We reached office by 2.30PM, and greeted by a group of anxious co-workers. Some smiles, some with eyes wide open. We exchanged the news bits. When we got back to our desks, news started pouring in. With every 5 mins, somebody standing up and announcing "one more blast", "one killed", "traffic diverted in silk board area" and the likes. Soon, an organizational announcement came through the PA system informing us about the happenings, and requesting us not to panic. By 4PM an email announcement came from the security desk. Ppl started moving out to their homes. But the security did not allow anyone out, in an act of caution. But very soon, they got green signal, and the willing people were allowed to leave. The security gave traffic updates to all.
We too left the office by 5.15PM. It was a good excuse to leave early on a Friday evening. But a bigger reason was to reach home safely. Reached home by 5.30PM. Ensured that ppl who left along with me reached home safe too...
As we all saw and heard in TV, all the blasts were low intensity and not really intended to take any lives. The blasts dint have any effect on anything at all. Situation was soon back to normal, after the initial set of rumours settled down. Traffic on Hosur Road proceeded as normal. All the interstate travel buses operated as normal.
No conclusion yet, on who did this, or what the motive was. But a few rumours still floating around:
1. Terrorist groups trying to destabilize Bangalore with their main target, the IT.
But this sounds nonsens. No terrorist group would want to play games with bombs, the kinds we get during Diwali.
2. Miscreants trying to defame the BJP government.
This is the claim by the government itself. No better ways to defame ?! How will a mini-blast defame the government ?
3. An ill-effort of local Kannadigas to kick out non-Kannadigas
The root reason for this argument is that the blasts seem to have happened in comparitively densely populated non-kannadiga areas. Madiwala is one for sure.
4. A warning of things to come...
Why would somebody want to warn if their intention is not clean ?!
One thing is for sure. There has been a fair amount of planning behind the serial blasts. 7 blasts in 15 mins proves this. And it surely would be a fairly big team behind this. The blast sites are not very near to each other...
Got calls from home, from unc, from cousins.. The network was congested for a while. But sms was going thru. And calls were going thru too, on a 3rd or 4th try. (With vodafone, this is like any other day). There were questions on whether the network was jammed on purpose. But this shouldnt be true. I had coverage throughout, and I was getting calls/sms very often. And I could make calls with not much of diffuculty.
On the 2nd day, I had to go to Malleshwaram to get my camera back from service centre. Gasper and I started by around 12.15PM from home. Stopped at a tea stall, where we were told that a high intensity bomb was defused at Forum Mall in Koramangala. That comes in our route to Malleshwaram! We opted to take the same route, unless interrupted by the police. We shot this video of the Madiwala Blast Site:
There were outdoor unit vans of all major news channels - Times Now had their unit van parked virtually inside the madiwala bus stop. NDTV van was on the right hand side of the road. Not very far, we could find the unit vans of UTV and Zee. A good harvest day for the news guyz!
And this is the Forum Mall video, minutes after the reports of bomb defusal came in:
The city, which was once considered a safe city is now shaken a bit. But not to the extent to create panic among the citizens. The news channels tried their bit to create panic, by repeatedly telecasting the same old 2 min clip they had, and every now and then saying "Do not panic" blah blah. The expression on the news reporter would have scared you slightly to a greater extent than seeing the blast site in person!
Today is a normal day here. With schools open. Shops open. Malls open. Everything normal.
For the record, on the way, we covered 3 hot spots - Madiwala, Forum and Adugodi. Hmm.. Quite an impressive record!
Labels: news
posted by Rat at 5:59 PM
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