Siliguri: A powerful blast near a Shiva temple left two Nepalese security force persons dead today (Mar 9, 2004) at Kankarbhita on the other side of the Indo-Nepal border, about 35 to 35 km from the commercial North Bengal town.

Official sources quoting reports from across the border said that the Special Security Bureau (SSB), which mans the entire Indo-Nepal border, had sealed the Naxalbari-Panitanki portion after the explosion this morning.

Meanwhile, a rumour that a bomb had been planted at the office of the Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority, panic shopkeepers at the market on the ground floor, with shutters being hastily pulled down this morning, official sources said.

The market, a stone's throw from the Tenzing Norgay bus stand on the arterial Hill Cart Road to Darjeeling town was searched as was the office upstairs by the police and the Bomb Disposal Squad, which found nothing.

Shops later reopened when it was established that the matter had been a rumour only, the sources added.