M A I N   N E W S

2 blasts outside UK mission in US

New York, May 5
Two small grenades exploded in a concrete flowerpot outside a multi-storeyed building housing the British Consulate in midtown Manhattan early today, shattering glass panel on the front door but causing no injuries, hours after the UK went to the polls.

The “toy grenades”, filled with black gunpowder, exploded in one of the flowerpots kept outside the building as barriers, blowing up a 1-foot chunk from the cement pot.

The police sealed off the area and was examining the tapes from surveillance cameras for clues, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who visited the spot, said “we have at this point no idea who did (it) or the motive.”

“We have the best people working and investigating, and eventually we will find out who did it and apprehend them,” he told a press conference.

Investigators believed that while one of the explosives was of the size of a pineapple, the other was of a lemon size.

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that two small explosions took place outside the multi-storeyed building housing the consulate on the 9th, 10th and 11th floors.

Mr Bloomberg said no threats were received before the explosions and no one had claimed responsibility.

Security personnel, along with bomb sniffing dogs, checked all cars parked in the area for any secondary explosive device but found none.

Mr Bloomberg said areas around other diplomatic missions were also “swept” but everything was found to be normal.

The explosions coincided with the British parliamentary elections but Mr Bloomberg asked reporters not to jump to any conclusions till the investigations were complete.

Police officials said the devices were similar but might not be identical and appeared to have been ignited by a common fuse. No timing device was found and investigators have recovered and are examining the fragments of the devices.

The hollow of the “novelty type grenades” was filled with black powder, which the police is also examining.

Mr Bloomberg asked the people to be vigilant and report to the police any suspicious object. Experts said the explosions did not have a trademark of any major terror network.

Security agencies have put concrete flowerpots outside all sensitive buildings in the city to deter any vehicle from driving into them. There are 12 huge flowerpots in front of the building housing the British Consulate and the devices were planted in the soil of one of them. — PTI