Pune blast: German bakery founder 'emotionally shattered'

He wept silently standing at the barricades that separated the cordoned off German bakery which he had lovingly started in 1988.

Sixty-four-year-old Woody Gutzeit, who spent some time near the charred remains of the bombed bakery, was "emotionally shattered" to see the site.

Accompanied by bakery's manager Ram Gopal Karkee, Gutzeit visited the place on Wednesday. Karkee said "Gutzeit cried. What pained him more was the loss of lives the terror attack had claimed."

He quoted Gutzeit as saying "If at all they wanted to blow up the bakery, they could have done it at night when there was nobody inside. My heart goes out to the customers for whom it was such a dear place".

Gutzeit had handed over the popular joint --- frequented by foreigners staying in the nearby Osho Ashram--- to Dnyaneshwar Kharose in 1996 as he left Pune for health reasons.

"He found pollution levels in Pune suffocating and decided to leave the city and went to Himachal Pradesh where he started a health food company," Karkee said.

Smita, the widow of Dnyaneshwar Kharose, said, "Woody did not meet me during his stay and we have not been in touch with him for the last eleven years since he left Pune."