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NEW DELHI: Five people were killed and 80 others injured in two suspected bomb attacks on Monday in areas of western India wrecked by Hindu-Muslim tensions, Indian media reported.
Four people died and at least 70 others were hurt in a powerful blast at a hotel near a mosque in the tinderbox town of Malegaon in Maharashtra state, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Reports said rioting broke out after the blast, causing several more injuries - including of five policemen. Police resorted to firing in the air to control angry crowds and imposed a curfew over part of the town.
In the neighbouring state of Gujarat, where Hindu-Muslim tensions also run high, a 15-year-old Muslim boy was killed and 10 others wounded in another crude bomb attack in a mainly Muslim part of the town of Modasa, PTI said.
PTI said the blast occurred in a market crowded with people following the breaking of the Ramadan fast.
"There was a motorcycle carrying an explosive. We are reviewing security arrangements," Gujarat's Home Minister Amit Shah told Indian media.
The NDTV news channel said an alert has been sounded across western India.
Both explosions appeared to target Muslim areas, and come after a wave of serial explosions in several Indian cities seemingly directed at middle-class Hindus.
The town of Malegaon was hit by simultaneous bomb blasts in September 2006 which killed 38 people and wounded more than 100. Most of the victims were Muslims.
Gujarat state, ruled by the Hindu nationalist opposition, is also considered particularly sensitive because it was the scene of serious rioting in 2002, when an estimated 2,000 people - mostly Muslims - were killed by Hindu mobs taking revenge for a train blaze that killed scores of Hindu pilgrims.
Gujarat's commercial capital Ahmedabad had been hit by a string of 16 bombs on July 27 that killed 45 and injured over 160. These attacks were claimed by a shadowy Islamist militant group called the Indian Mujahideen.
Police in Ahmedabad had also announced on Monday they had found 17 "crude explosive devices" dumped in rubbish.
Several other Indian cities - Jaipur, Bangalore and New Delhi - have been hit by serial bombings since May, also claimed by the Indian Mujahideen.
On Saturday a bomb exploded in a crowded market in the capital, leaving two dead and 22 wounded.
The New Delhi bombing came exactly two weeks after the capital was hit by a string of more deadly serial blasts in crowded markets popular among more wealthy residents of the capital.
The Indian government recently unveiled new security measures to tackle what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said were "vast gaps" in intelligence gathering on home-grown militancy. - AFP/de
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