Two steel bombs explode in Kannavam, Kannur, late on Sunday; windows broken, no injuries, police open probe

The Kannavam police have registered a case on their own under various sections of the Explosive Substances Act, according to a report. The reports do not name the specific sections or say what kind of device was used beyond the term steel bomb, which in Kerala usually refers to a crude explosive packed in a steel container. Nothing has been said about who might be behind the explosions or what the motive was.

A district with a record

Kannur has a long record of crude bombs. Over the years the district has seen political clashes in which country-made bombs were used, and police have recovered batches of them from farmland, empty houses and roadsides. Recent years have seen blasts at houses and the recovery of steel bombs from open ground, and in one earlier case police suspected that explosives were being made in a damaged house owned by a retired teacher. Those earlier incidents are a reason why the police take a find of this sort seriously, but they do not show that the present blasts are connected to any of them.

For now, there is no sign that the explosions were aimed at any person. The damage was limited to window glass, and the time, close to midnight, meant that the roads were quiet. That could point to an act meant to frighten or to a bomb that exploded by accident or in a test, but the police have not said anything of the sort, and it would be speculation.

The first line of inquiry is the explosive. Forensic tests of the samples should show what the device was made of and whether it matches those recovered in earlier cases, which would help the police find out who has made such devices before. The second is the CCTV footage, which could show vehicles or people near the two sites in the half hour before the blasts. The third is the time and place. Two blasts within half an hour of each other, a short distance apart, suggest that the same person or group may have been responsible for both.

Kannavam is a hilly area with forest, plantations and scattered houses, and the forest office is a government building. Whether it was the target will become clear only when the police say what the device was and where it was placed.

Because the explosions happened at night in a sparsely populated area, there were few witnesses, and the police will depend on the physical evidence and on the cameras. They will also check whether any person has been seen buying the materials needed for such devices in the district in recent days.

The Explosive Substances Act, under which the case has been registered, makes it an offence to cause an explosion that is likely to endanger life or property, and to make or possess explosives with an unlawful object. Its punishments are severe and can go up to life imprisonment in the more serious cases. Because the case has been registered by the police on their own initiative, no complaint from a victim was needed to start it.

Police usually advise people in such cases not to touch any object that looks like a bomb, to keep children away from fields and roadsides where objects have been found, and to call the nearest police station at once. The area is likely to see more police patrols in the coming days, and the investigators will want to talk to anyone who saw a vehicle or a person near the two sites late on Sunday night.