A news report from CNN-IBN describing the January 2013 incident where a bomb was concealed in the body of a deceased member of the Central Reserve Police Force.
Public Intelligence
In the first weeks of 2013, police officers were combing through a bloody scene in the Indian state of Jharkhand where a dozen security personnel had died in a shootout with local rebels. The Naxalite fighters, who promote a Maoist ideology through their ongoing guerrilla conflict with the Indian government, had killed the men, including five Central Reserve Police Force members, in a gun battle days before. When local villagers and police tried to remove the bodies, a bomb went off killing four more people. After the incident, a group of doctors in nearby Ranchi were performing an autopsy on one of the bodies when they encountered something metal lodged inside the body. A bomb squad was called in and an explosive device triggered by shifts in pressure that had been sewn into the police officer’s body was successfully defused.
A Department of Homeland Security and FBI bulletin sent to law enforcement around the county in May 2013 warns of the same thing happening in a U.S. city. The bulletin describes how “insurgents in India placed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the bodies of two police officers who were killed during an ambush . . . designed to target first responders, medical personnel, and medical facilities.” Though this “concealment method” has not been “encountered in the Homeland,” the bulletin warns that the “incident received broad English-language media coverage overseas, which could prompt technically-competent violent extremists to consider adopting the tactic.”
The DHS-FBI bulletin credits Indian medical personnel with preventing detonation of the device because of their alertness to the “suspicious indicators” that a bomb had been placed inside the body. First responders are advised to look for “unusual or fresh—possibly still bleeding or seeping—incisions accompanied by crude stitching” as well as “signs of post-mortem incisions or stitching.” Other signs include “abnormal bloating or swelling of the body” or “foreign objects protruding from the body” as well as human remains ” placed in a manner/location requiring responders to immediately remove them from the encountered position/location.”
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