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BANGALORE, India - India's high-technology capital Bangalore was rocked by a string of seven bomb blasts Friday with at least two people killed and a dozen more wounded, police said.
Police said the southern city had been put on high alert, with bomb disposal teams and forensic experts rushed into action as authorities tried to determine who was responsible and IT companies closed early.
"A woman and a man have died and around a dozen others received shrapnel injuries in the blasts," Bangalore police commissioner Shankar Bidri told reporters.
Two blasts occurred close to police facilities while another bomb went of in an upmarket city-centre business district, he said, adding a fourth explosion targeted Koramangla district, which houses several computer software firms.
The other blasts were reported from the southern suburbs of the religiously mixed and cosmopolitan city, the capital of Karnataka state, police said.
Police chief Bidri said the total amount of explosive used in the bombs was "equivalent to one or two hand grenades."
"We suspect that timer devices were used in two or three explosive devices, while the others could have been set off using mobile phones," Bidri said.
"We are investigating the blasts. Bomb disposal squads and forensic experts have reached the spot. Bangalore police is on high alert."
So far none of India's various Islamic guerrilla groups or outlawed Maoist insurgents have claimed responsibility for the attacks, Bidri added.
Indian Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta said the blasts occurred in a radius of 10 to 15 kilometres in Bangalore, the hub of India's outsourcing and software industry and the Indian base of many global technology firms.
"Initial reports say that some of the blasts are low intensity using gelatin (gelignite explosive) sticks," Assistant police commissioner A Raghuveer told reporters, adding the blasts took place from about 2:00-2:45pm.
"Such incidents will not deter the government from pursuing its policy of dealing with anti-national elements in a resolute manner," Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency.
Bangalore is home to more than six million people and some 1,500 domestic and foreign firms -- including Infosys Technologies, the pioneer of India's outsourcing sector.
Soon after the blasts, the IT companies downed their shutters and asked their employees to go home, a representative for the software companies told AFP.
Bangalore has been relatively free of the militant attacks that have plagued other parts of the country, although one person was killed and four wounded in an Islamist attack at a premier science institute in the city in December 2005.
Intelligence sources said it was too early to say who may have been behind Friday's attacks.
"We are looking at the pattern of the explosions, and are trying to work out who is behind them and why," a federal Intelligence Bureau official told AFP. "We hope to find out very soon."
- AFP/ir
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