According to the police, the blast happened near a shopping center with two ATMs. The criminals had planned on filling one of the ATMs with gas and then detonating it remotely. There had already been holes drilled in the ATM in order to fill it up.
Police said that the blast happened before the criminals could carry out their activities, possibly because the gas cylinder the two were carrying blew up by accident.
At first a counter-terrorism unit was involved, but it was quickly established that the blast was unrelated to terrorism.
One person died in the blast while another is in a critical condition. The deceased person has not been identified yet.
Head of the Criminal Police Department of the State Police Andrejs Grišins said that such cases are quite common, as several groups of criminals have been detained in connection with similar crimes in the past few years.
