Mangaluru airport bomb planter surrenders; calls it act of revenge

The man accused of planting explosives in Mangalore International Airport on Monday morning has surrendered before police in the early hours on Wednesday.

The accused identified as Adithya Rao, 36, a native of KHB Colony in Manipal, landed in DG and IGP office around 8 am in Bengaluru and surrendered before the police. The jurisdictional Halasurgate Police rushed to the spot and detained him and took him to the police station for interrogation.

According to senior police officers, Rao confessed before police that he planted the explosive in the airport premises and reportedly told them it was an act of taking revenge on airport officials for rejecting him a security officer job in Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in 2018.

Rao told that he saw the news in papers and regional channels showing him captured in CCTV camera. Rao is said to have prepared the explosive in a hotel in Mangaluru. He is being shifted to an isolated place from Halasurgate police station for further interrogation. The senior officers of Bengaluru may question him and later will be handed over to Mangaluru police.

Rao is an engineering graduate and MBA holder, he worked in various private firms, mutt, in hotels as a security officer. Police are now questioning him about where he purchased the explosives and how he learned to prepare it. On the other hand, the Mangaluru police had traced a hotel in which Rao recently started working. The staff has reportedly told he had purchased white cement online.

Police have also detained Aditya's father, B Krishnamurthy for questioning. After his son's arrest in 2018, Krishnamurthy had sold his house in the KHB colony and had shifted to a rented house in Mangaluru.

Meanwhile, police took Rao to St Martha's Hospital in Bengaluru for a medical test.

(With inputs from Harsh and Naina J A)