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Self-claimed Mangaluru airport bomber case says powder found in his locker is cyanide

After surrending to the police, Aditya Rao, 36, is being taken to the places he frequented in the past

MANGALURU: Police have retrieved a box containing a powdery substance from a Karnataka Bank locker rented by the man who claimed to have planted a bomb at the international airport here last week, police said Sunday.

Aditya Rao told the police the powder was cyanide. The probe team, led by assistant commissioner of police K U Belliappa, sent the box for tests to the Forensic Science Laboratory, police said.

The man, a native of Manipal, had rented the locker at the Kunjibettu branch of Karnataka Bank in Udupi.

A family member reportedly mentioned to the police that the 36-year old Aditya Rao had in the past expressed an intention to commit suicide by consuming poison.

Aditya Rao was also taken to Malpe near Udupi from where he allegedly made a hoax call to the airport manager that a bomb had been placed in the IndiGo flight to Bengaluru on the same day that he placed a bomb near a ticket counter in the airport.

He confessed to making the bomb threat call, police said. After the call, he threw away the SIM card and left for Bengaluru where he surrendered on January 22. Police, however, could not retrieve the SIM card.

Aditya Rao, now in police custody, will be taken later to Karkala where he used to work in a restaurant, police said.

A 'live' explosive device was found in an unattended bag near a ticket counter at the departure gate of the Mangaluru International Airport on January 20, triggering a scare before it was defused at a nearby open ground.

Police released a picture of a man captured by CCTV cameras as the suspect who placed the bomb. Later Rao surrendered to the police in Bengaluru.

Earlier on Saturday, Aditya Rao was taken to a hair-cutting salon at Kenjar here, where he left one of his bags before going to the airport with the bag containing the bomb.

The barber identified Rao and said the man had wanted to keep the bag inside his salon, but he asked him to keep it outside. He collected the bag on his return from the airport. Rao told the police that he had only his clothes inside the bag.

Aditya Rao will also be taken to Chennai as he revealed during questioning that he collected materials for the improvised explosive device (IED) from there, police said.

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