New Delhi:
Investigators are looking into a possible link between the blast in Bengaluru on Sunday and five terror suspects who escaped from a jail in Madhya Pradesh in 2013, the government said today.
"There is a possibility," said junior home minister Kiren Rijiju, when asked whether the men - said to be members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India or SIMI - could have been involved in the blast in which one woman was killed.
Three persons were injured when a bomb exploded near the city's popular Coconut Grove restaurant on Sunday evening.
Mr Rijiju said it was "definitely a terror attack."
The National Investigation Agency or NIA, which looks into terror cases, might be given charge of the investigation "if needed", Home Minister Rajnath Singh told reporters today.
"Intelligence agencies will give us concrete information. We will decide after collecting all information whether to hand over investigations to the NIA," Mr Singh said.
Bangalore police commissioner MN Reddi told NDTV that the possible involvement of the SIMI men is among the many angles his force is exploring.
In October last year, the alleged SIMI operatives attacked two constables and grabbed their guns before breaking out of a prison in Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh.
Based on phone intercepts, senior intelligence sources had recently said the men could be planning terror attacks on behalf of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI.
In September this year, a blast at a house in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnore district led the police to what was possibly being used as a hideout by the men.
The police are also looking into any possible connection with Mehdi Masroor Biswas, a city-based engineer who was arrested recently for running a pro-Islamic State Twitter account, @ShamiWitness, that had tens of thousands of followers worldwide.