The car (Ba 4 Cha 5538) was parked some 20 meters off Ishan Children Hospital´s building at Basundhara when the explosions took place. Eyewitnesses said they heard two strong explosions within a few seconds and saw a massive flare in the car. [break]
There was no one inside the car when the explosions occurred and the four persons were injured after they were hit by splinters of the car. All the injured have already returned home after minor treatment at TU Teaching Hospital.
Two separate groups -- Janatantrik Tarai Mukti Morcha (Rajan Mukti) and Swatantra Nepal Party -- have claimed sole responsibility for the blast. However, the claims have yet to be verified independently.
The car is owned by Maoist trade unionist Ram Bahadur Adhikari. He is the treasurer of an area committee of taxi operators under All Nepal Trade Union Federation. He had bought the car four days ago. Police have detained Adhikari for investigation.
Dipak Bista, the driver who had reportedly hired the car for four days, and two passengers have also been detained.
Police said the Maruti 800 car carried 40 liters of petrol in two jerrycans and an unexploded socket bomb was later found in the wreckage.
“Low intensity explosives must have been kept inside a box, which was found at the scene” said SP Ramesh Kharel, chief of Metropolitan Police Range Kathmandu. According to him, raw explosives combined with petrol could have ignited the first small blast which could have caused the second more powerful blast.
Police termed the blasts ´accidental´ but indicated that the motive behind carrying explosives in a car could have been very lethal. “Why were explosives kept inside a private car and what were the real targets, these questions need to be resolved,” he added.
The blasts took place at about 7:15 a.m.
The explosions took place some 10 minutes after the car was pulled up at the open parking lot on the side of a service road alongside the Ring Road. The driver and two others were reportedly sitting at a nearby teashop when the explosions occurred.
“I don´t think that the car was left there to let it go off,” SP Kharel said. “Something went wrong and it exploded. The target of the explosion could have been something else.”
If the intention was to spread terror, they would have targeted more busy places, police officials said.
Police officials said the driver told during primary interrogation one of his acquaintances working at a department store had requested him to carry a box wrapped in paper.
The injured include pedestrians Potan Thakur, Bharat KC, Nayan Prasad Subedi and Som Nath Mahato. The blasts smashed some windowpanes of the hospital and a nearby restaurant.
Though police initially said the fire broke out due to a technical problem in the car, bomb disposal squads of Nepal Army and Armed Police Force (APF) concluded that two explosions occurred within a short interval. The APF fire brigade took more than half an hour to douse the fire.
Following the incident, there appeared two different parties taking responsibility.
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