The climb down in the stand of the prestigious English daily comes after the Uttara Kannada district superintendent of police K.T. Balakrishna denied the newspapers claim that “a dump of explosive material including RDX huge enough to singe major south Indian cities is piled up in an unidentified house in the town”.
Dismissing the paper's report which was believed to be based on “police sources”, Mr. Balakrishna ridiculed the report saying: “Can the explosives be piled up like the fertilizers in a godown?”
The report had quoted Nasir to have revealed about the dump still lying in the Bhatkal house, but failed to lead the police to the house on Thursday, claiming he could not recollect where it was and how it looked, as it was dark when he visited.
The report in TOI also claimed that a joint team comprising personnel from the Anti-Terrorist Squad, Bangalore and Delhi Special police scoured Bhatkal town to identify the house, with the help of four terror suspects including Nasir from Kerala, who is said to be the prime accused in the July 25, 2008 Bangalore serial blasts. The explosives from the Bhatkal dump, the report claimed, are believed to have been used in the Chinnaswamy Stadium blasts in 2010 and Delhi High Court last year, besides several other terror strikes across the country.
A day after the TOI published the local journalists tried to follow up on the 'leads' provided by the paper and were in for a big surprise. The SP clarified that the district police department, central intelligence department and several other departments do not have a clue about such a 'RDX dump' existing in Bhatkal. “I have been to Bhatkal on several occasions. I have never got any clue or information about terrorist activities there. Even the intelligence department has dismissed the report,” he said.
He also dismissed the TOI report as baseless, fictitious and speculative. “Several such reports have flown around in the past. This is the latest,” he added.
Meanwhile, embarrassed by the outright rejection of their 'investigative report' by the police department, TOI has come out with a clarification on Monday with the title “Bhatkal is not a town of culprits.”
Although it insisted that 'the report was based on police sources privy to investigations', the newspaper declared that it had no reason to brand Bhatkal as a town of culprits. If the report paints such a picture of the town, TOI would like to correct the wrong impression and assert it has no intention to hurt anybody's feelings.”
Significantly, the clarification was published on page three (local news page) as a single column item whereas the 'Bhatkal sits on an RDX dump, warn policemen' was displayed prominently on page one across three columns.
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