Agra blast: UP Police detain 4 for questioning

The UP Police have detained four people for questioning in connection with the blast in Agra on Saturday. Fifteen people were injured in the blast at Agra's Jai Hospital. The UP Police and the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) have refused to label it as a terrorist attack, saying they are still working on the evidence gathered from the spot.

Since the blast site was barely 2.5 kms from the Taj Mahal on the Agra-Delhi highway, security at the world famous monument has been tightened, an official spokesman said in Lucknow on Sunday. A high alert has also been sounded throughout UP, he added.

A preliminary report sent to the Union home ministry by the UP government is reported to have stated that business rivalry between two private hospitals could be behind the blast. However, the possibility of the blast being a terror attack has not been ruled out in this report, sources said. A concrete conclusion could be drawn only after a thorough probe, the report states, according to the sources Lucknow.

Experts from the Forensic Science Lab (FSL) had recovered pieces of wire and a battery from the blast site, confirming the use of an improvised explosive device (IED). The explosive, said to be black in colour, was placed in a bag under a bench in front of the hospital's reception counter. The condition of the wires and the battery suggested the explosive was put together loosely.

The blast shattered the window panes of the reception and set off panic among the people.

Patients were evacuated from the hospital and police cordoned off the entire area and conducted an intensive combing operation.

Agra police said that it was a low intensity blast. Several tiffin boxes have been found from the site. A bag and nine volt battery has also been recovered.