The Bengaluru City Police have launched a manhunt for the suspected bomber using CCTV camera footage and a partial image of his face. Armed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), the police have been trying to spot him in the footage from hundreds of cameras that dot the IT corridor and have had some success. However, this has not yet given the city police any leads that could potentially identify the suspect, sources said.
The Bengaluru police have pieced together CCTV footage from Kundalahalli bus stop, just a few metres away from The Rameshwaram Cafe, where he boards a BMTC Volvo bus gets down at the next stop, and walks to the restaurant for 300 metres at 11:50 a.m. on Friday, March 1. A tall athletic man aged around 30-40 years, is seen wearing a white cap and a black face mask, with a black backpack. His face is not visible. Police said he had taken a bus just one stop behind the restaurant and had not used a vehicle to avoid detection. They suspect someone dropped him off at Kundalahalli bus stop.
However, the police got lucky with the footage from the CCTV cameras inside the restaurant. Though the suspect is wearing his face mask even inside the restaurant, he pulls it down while eating the idli he bought at the restaurant. “Even there he has taken care to hide behind a tree. But we have gotten a partial image of his face,” a senior official said. Police have used image enhancing technology and also got a sketch of the suspect prepared, sources said.
Analysing the mobile tower dump data of the area around the time of the bomb blast, police have tracked down those who were at the spot but not regular visitors of the area and those whose mobile phones were switched off after the blast. However, none of them have matched with the suspect seen in the CCTV footage. The image has not found a match in any of the police databases either and it has now been shared with all security agencies, sources said.
Meanwhile, given the suspicion that the case may be linked to the 2022 Mangaluru cooker blast, which was suspected to be in turn linked to the Coimbatore car blast case of the same year, special teams of the city police have fanned out to Mangaluru, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, armed with the image of the suspect.
“The investigation is on the right track, but we don’t know when we will reach the right station,” a senior official said.
FSL report on explosive likely on March 3
The city police are still unsure of the explosive material used in the Improvised Explosive Device (IED). “Forensic Science Laboratory have collected some samples even on Saturday morning. We expect the report by Sunday,” said a senior official.
