MADURAI: Senior BJP leader L K Advani escaped an alleged attempt on his life in Madurai on Friday morning. A crude pipe bomb planted under a bridge in a village near Madurai in Tamil Nadu was detected after a tip off by a villager and defused.
Advani was scheduled to cross the bridge at Alampatti near Thirumangalam, about 25 kilometres from Madurai to reach Srivilliputhur in Virudhunagar district. The leader, who is on Jan Chetna Yatra changed his route and reached Sriviliputhur from where he is set to travel to Shencottah in Tamil Nadu - Kerala border. The bomb has been defused.
Police said the six feet long pipe hidden under a low level bridge across a stream in Alampatti was made of poly vinyl chloride (PVC).
It was stuffed with explosives and connected to a wire linked to battery kept about half-a-kilometer away near a palm tree in a deserted place, a senior police official said. M Selvaraj (49), a villager spotted the wire around 6 am when he went to the place to answer nature's call and informed the village elders, who in turn alerted the police.
Even as a bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) rushed to the spot, Advani was briefed about the development and his travel route to Srivilliputur was changed. Senior police officials and BDDS personnel rushed to the spot and removed the crude bomb. It was taken to the forest area in the proximity and diffused. "The pipe contained 7 kg of high explosive gelatin gel,'' said a police official.
The detection of the crude bomb on the route of Advani has come as a major intelligence failure. This is the third incident of crude bomb being found in Madurai this year alone and fourth incident in the last two years. Strangely, the police have not made any headway in cracking the cases and arresting the culprits in any of the incidents. The recent incident was on September 29 when a crude bomb was found planted inside a government bus. Even at that time the blast was averted as a state transport corporation employee spotted the explosive and informed the police. In May last a similar bomb exploded in a dust bin near the crowded Mattuthavani bus stand.
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