A 23-year-old man died and his brother was injured on Monday when a country made bomb that they were carrying on a bike exploded in Utnoor village of Adilabad district in Telangana, the police said.
The incident took place when the vehicle skid and fell on the road. Rathod Mani Rao died on the spot, while his sibling Shani Rao was injured and has been hospitalised.
Speaking to TNM, Utnoor Deputy Superintendent of Police, David Yesudas, said, "The deceased was carrying small country-made bombs on the bike. The impact from the bike crash may have triggered the bomb and led to this incident."
The police officer said that the body of the deceased was disintegrated into several pieces due to the intensity of the explosion.
The DySP further added, "While the deceased was riding the bike, his brother who sat behind him has sustained minor injuries. We have registered a case and further investigation is underway."
Both of them were reported to hail from Maharashtra and belonged to a community, where people are commonly hired by farmers to scare away wild boars and other animals from entering their fields.
Wild boars often enter fields in Telangana and damage agricultural crops. An inquiry is ongoing to ascertain whether the duo got hold of the bombs, or manufactured them out of available material, police said.
In September this year, a ragpicker was killed in Hyderabad in a similar manner, after a bag that he tried to open exploded in the street. The man, identified as 35-year-old Ali, sustained critical injuries in the blast that occurred in Rajendranagar. He later succumbed at the government-run Osmania Hospital.
The explosion on a footpath near pillar number 279 of the PVNR Expressway, which leads to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA), had triggered panic at the time. The police swiftly stepped into action and cordoned off the area. However, they later said that there was no reason to panic, and suspected that a chemical reaction led to the explosion.