Teams of counter-terror sleuths and National Security Guards (NSG) have been sent to the Jehovah Witnesses Church in Kalamassery in Kerala after an improvised explosive device exploded at the Sunday prayer meeting this morning. One woman died and another 23 were injured in the first hinterland blast after many years with CT operatives on the spot.
People rush to save themselves after a blast at a convention centre in Kalamassery, in Ernakulam district. (PTI)
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The blast took place at 9.40 am in the church which at that time had a congregation of 2500 persons.
Preliminary findings from the blast indicate that it was a low-intensity explosion with no shrapnel. Investigators have determined that the explosive device used was a timer-based device, as batteries and wires were discovered at the scene, according to senior officials aware of the development.
The presence of a timer-based device with batteries and wires but no shrapnel suggests a calculated act meant to send more of a signal by terrorists.
The case has not yet been officially handed over to the NIA, but the fact that an NIA SP is present at the scene underscores the gravity of the situation.
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While CT agencies are investigating the incident, Kalamassery near Kochi has been witness to Muslim radical activity including PFI in the past. However, the PFI are not known to use IEDs for their extremist activities.
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While CT agencies are investigating the incident, Kalamassery near Kochi has been witness to Muslim radical activity including PFI in the past. However, the PFI are not known to use IEDs for their extremist activities.
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The incident comes a day after former Hamas leader Khaled Mashal addressed a gathering in Malappuram in north Kerala virtually and exhorted the Jamait-e-Islami activists to take action against the non-believers.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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