Kerala Police Chief says IED used for Kalammassery blast

Kerala Police Chief appeals for calm; forms special team to investigate Kalamassery blast. Suspect used IED, lunch box, and car to carry out attack. Police suspect attack was to make political statement and are determining motive, trigger mechanism.

Kerala Police Chief Shaik Darvesh Saheb said the yet-to-be-identified saboteur had used an improvised explosive device (IED) to target worshippers at the evangelist prayer convention at Kalammassery in Ernakulam district.

He said, “The blast occurred soon after the prayers began at 9.30 a.m. It claimed the life of one worshipper and injured scores of others. The police will form a special team to investigate the case. They are in touch with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and would work hand in glove with Central agencies to crack the case.”

Mr. Saheb said the police would prosecute those who seek to inflame passions by spreading malicious misinformation on the Internet in the wake of the blasts. He also appealed for calm.

A senior police official said it was not lost on investigators that the blast appeared to be a minor copycat imitation of the Easter Sunday bombings at a church packed with worshippers in Sri Lanka in 2019.

However, he said, it was too early to attribute any motive to the Kalamassery blast. The official said the attack, prima facie, seemed a well-coordinated attempt to precipitate a communally precarious situation in the State through a high-profile act of violence.

The police said no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Investigators were unclear if the blasts were the work of a single individual acting in a lone wolf mode or whether any particular group was behind the murder and mayhem that caused shock, fear and anger in society.

The police investigation also factored in that the blast had occurred when a fraught political atmosphere prevailed in the world owing to the anguish-inducing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.