MADRAS: Noted film director Mani Ratnam escaped with minor injuries when a bomb thrown this house here exploded causing minor damages to the first floor. A maid servant of the house was injured in the attack.
It is said that when Mani Ratnam was having his morning coffee in the verandah, two persons in the age group of 3035, hurried a bomb from outside which hit the terrace, shattering the windows panes, a splinter from which apparently scraped his right heel.
A splinter pierced the cheek of the maid servant standing by the window when Mani Ratnam noticed the two behind their on gates of his house, he chased them but they took to their heels.
Two other persons of the area also joined the chase and almost closed in ‘on them when the culprits brandished a pistol and escaped. They fled in an auto, it is said.
The police recovered an unexploded bomb from the platform outside the house and later defused it, According to police sources, it was a powerful bomb and could have caused heavy, damages. Sources said that both the bombs were of the type in which a lead pipe is filled with explosive, fitted with a liming device and thrown at the target.
Though the identity of the assailants is not known, it is suspected that some Muslim group, angered by Mani Ratnam’s controversial depiction of the post Ayodhya riots in Bombay, would have been behind the attempt.
Tamil Nadu has been witnessing in creakingly disruptive activities by both the Hindu and the Muslim fundamentalists.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 14, 1995
