Karnataka airport bomb planter had shopped on Amazon, assembled bomb at home

The man, who was awarded 20 years of imprisonment for planting an improvised explosive bomb at the Mangaluru International Airport in January 2020, had managed to get raw materials to prepare the explosive from online service provider Amazon, as per the judgement.

Investigation agencies have submitted a report to the court about the accused Aditya Rao (37) procuring raw materials to make explosives online and in the 80-page judgement, the court mentions the same.

They found that the accused with an intention to explore the substance so as to cause terror and endanger human life, had pre-planned an outline and collected the information for preparing improvised explosive substances by calling up 'Just Dial' company, the investigation agencies have stated.

Rao had visited several cyber centres, browsing centres as well as internet centres and collected the information. Upon such collection of information, he had ordered the necessary raw materials for explosives from the Amazon website, the investigation report says.

Also read: Court convicts engineer Aditya Rao for planting bomb at Mangaluru airport

After collecting the raw materials without any license, the accused had discreetly stored them in the staff quarters of a family restaurant in Mangaluru.

Without permission from any authority, he had mixed the raw materials and prepared improvised explosive substances. After this, he had kept that improvised explosive substance in a black bag and moved it to the sensitive and crowded area at the departure gate of Mangaluru International Airport, the report says.

He had left the black back containing improvised explosive substances at the airport and escaped from the place.

In 2018, the accused had applied for a security supervisor post at Bengaluru airport and had spent Rs 7,500 for securing the post. When his attempts failed and he could not get the security supervisor job, he had made a hoax call that there is a bomb in Bangalore Airport and railway station.

Later, he was arrested and sentenced to one-year imprisonment. After serving the sentence of one year he had developed hatred towards the government and with this hatred, he had committed the offence punishable under Section 4 of the Explosive Substances Act of 1908 and section 16 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967.

The facts which emerged from the prosecution papers are that the accused with an intention to threaten the unity integrated security and sovereignty of India had placed the improvised explosive substances, the judge observed.

The Fourth Additional District and Session's Court of Dakshina Kannada district Judge B.R. Pallavi convicted the accused 37-year-old Adithya Rao for 20 years of imprisonment on March 11.

The accused has been found guilty under Section 4 of the Explosive Substances Act 1908 and Section 16 of the Prevention of Unlawful Activities Act 1967. He has also been fined Rs 10,000.

Adithya Rao had planted the bomb in the Mangaluru International Airport on January 20, 2020. The authorities got the bomb detected and disposed it of the same day.

The police department had launched a hunt for the accused. The development had led to many speculations and created tension all over the state.

However, the convict Adithya Rao surrendered himself at the Director General and Inspector General office.

He has been in jail since then. Rao, a resident of Manipal in Udupi district, had pleaded guilty before the court.

Even though the accused pleaded guilty, the court by exercising discretion under section 229 of CrPC had invited the prosecution to prove charges levelled against the accused.

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