| |
AHMEDABAD, India : At least 15 people were killed and scores wounded Saturday in a string of coordinated bomb attacks in the tinderbox western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, officials said.
The series of more than a dozen blasts came just a day after a similar wave of bombings in the southern technology city of Bangalore.
The latest target, Ahmedabad, is a communally-sensitive city which saw thousands killed in Hindu attacks against Muslims in 2002.
Television channels said they had received a claim of responsibility from a little-known Islamist group calling itself the "Indian Mujahedeen," although officials said it was too early to comment on who was behind the blasts.
"Our information is that at least 15 people lost their lives and many, many others are injured," said Nipin Patel, Gujarat state's urban development minister.
Amit Shah, Gujarat's home minister, said at least 55 people were hospitalised.
"The state health minister is camping in his office and all hospitals have been alerted to take in more injured people," Shah told reporters, adding that he had reports of "more than 12 bomb attacks" in the city.
In New Delhi, federal Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta said more than a dozen blasts rocked bustling city, which is also one of India's wealthiest with booming diamond trading and textile manufacturing sectors.
"Between 13 and 14 blasts have taken place," said Gupta.
India sounded a nationwide alert on Friday after a series of eight low-intensity bombs went off in IT capital Bangalore and left one dead and seven wounded.
"We are surprised that despite a high security alert sounded yesterday after the bomb attacks in Bangalore, the blasts occurred today in Ahmedabad. We are shocked," India's Junior Home Minister Shakeel Ahmed said.
"It seems there is a lack of coordination between (federal) intelligence agencies and people involved in the policing," he said in New Delhi.
Ahmedabad police said the first explosion was reported at around 6:00 pm (1230 GMT) on a bridge in Ahmedabad.
"All the explosions occurred within a span of one hour and one of the bombs appeared to have been kept in a passenger bus," a police control room spokesman said.
Two of the blasts occurred in Ahmedabad's Maninagar residential district, the constituency of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi, a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is a highly controversial figure in India - accused of turning a blind eye to the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots which left 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the serial attacks, and urged Ahmedabad residents to remain calm, his office said in New Delhi. - AFP/ms
|
