SEOUL, 13 June (BelTA - Yonhap) - South Korean police said Tuesday they've arrested a suspect in connection with a parcel bomb explosion that injured a professor at a university in western Seoul.
The explosion occurred in an engineering faculty building at Yonsei University around 8:41 a.m., when a professor opened a box in his office on the fourth floor, according to the police.
He suffered minor burns to his neck, chest and hands, and is being treated at a nearby hospital.
Police said the suspect is a graduate school student who also studies architecture at the same university. The police said that the 25-year-old suspect confessed his wrongdoing during questioning at Seodaemun Police Station. The police said that they will look into the case as a possible misdeed by a student holding a personal grudge against the professor, but have yet to find out whether it was related to his grade point average.
The police said they arrested the suspect near the university around 8:23 p.m. after analyzing CCTV footage of the area. They also added that the officers have secured equipment used to manufacture the explosive package. The police said they will request a warrant to formally arrest the suspect.
The blast at the university prompted authorities to send a military bomb squad and a police special operations unit to the scene, on the possibility that it was a terror attack.
Students and staff were told to evacuate the building, causing a commotion as they showed panic following the explosion.
The police earlier suspected that the explosives were made by an amateur, citing the clumsiness of the device's composition.
The portable cup was connected to wires and four batteries that are sold at any hardware store.
A team of some 70 police officers from a bomb squad and crime lab worked at the scene to find out the exact cause of the incident and analyze the explosive device, according to the police, as they cordoned off the area.
