Five arrested in building blast case

VISAKHAPATNAM: City police on Friday arrested five persons who allegedly triggered a blast in an underconstruction building at Sivajipalem on May 17. Dispute over a piece of land led the rival group to detonate industrial explosives in the building.According to police, Duvvi Tata Rao, retired assistant manager of State Bank of India and Vanjaral Govind, an advocate, living at Sivajipalem for past few years, had long-standing dispute over ownership of a plot of land in front of Govind’s house.Recently, Govind started construction of a two-storey house on the disputed site after obtaining a decree from the court in his favour.Tata Rao and his son D Rajasekhar, who is Deputy Station Superintendent of Vishnupuram railway station in Nalgonda district hatched a plan to demolish the under-construction building.They engaged six explosive experts for the work promising to pay Rs 50,000.Rajasekhar came to the city from Nalgonda by train on May 15 while the experts came in a lorry with explosive materials of power jelly sticks, non-electrical detonators and cables next day.Rajasekhar booked Padmasri Lodge near Dwaraka bus station for their stay. The same night, they went to the building and triggered blast.The explosion was so powerful that the walls of the first floor developed cracks and glass panes of the adjacent building shattered.An old woman sustained injuries when fragments of construction material fell on her. Two sets of power jelly sticks were planted in the building- one on ground floor and the other on the first. The blast was triggered by a remote control device but the power jelly sticks on the ground floor did not explode.Besides D Rajasekhar and Tata Rao, B Srinu, B Hanma and B Balaji were arrested while three other accused are absconding.