Using bhang to defuse bombs

In Varanasi, where twin bomb blasts claimed at least 20 lives and injured over 150 people on Tuesday, the third powerful bomb didn?t go off thanks to a bhang addict who defused it in a state of delirium.

In Varanasi, where twin bomb blasts claimed at least 20 lives and injured over 150 people on Tuesday, the third powerful bomb didn’t go off thanks to a bhang addict who defused it in a state of delirium. The district administration has decided to reward him and his two associates for the courageous act.

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It is the two street vendors — who helped the police make the sketches of two attack suspects — had spotted the abandoned bag that contained the bomb and asked to Babu Lal Rawat to defuse the bomb.

Rawat, an electrician by profession, had appeared on the scene soon after the vendors alerted the police about a green-coloured bag which was left near their shops by two men who had come to buy doormats.

Rawat opened the bag in the presence of some police personnel and found a new pressure cooker wrapped with a white cover. “I always carry a cutter with me and tried to open the cooker, which was very hot,” he said.

Since he had consumed a heavy dose of bhang, he was unmindful of what could have happened had the cooker exploded in his hand. “I sat on the road, holding the cooker and detected two wires fitted with the whistle of the cooker and immediately snapped the wires,” he said.