“Suspicion is already falling on Islamist militants intent on destabilizing India by fanning tensions between Hindus and Muslims…”
Breaking reports point to higher casualties and more bombs than reported below. “Seven bombs hit India’s Ahmedabad, two killed,” by Rupam Jain Nair for Reuters, July 26:
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – At least seven small bombs exploded in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, killing at least two people and wounding 55, just a day after another set of blasts in the country’s southern IT hub, officials said.
On Friday, eight bombs exploded in quick succession in the southern IT city of Bangalore, killing at least one person and wounding six others.
Saturday’s blasts were in the Ahmedabad’s crowded old city dominated by its Muslim community. One was left in a metal tiffin box, used to carry food, another apparently left on a bicycle.
“We have been told of seven to eight blasts,” the central government’s junior home minister Shriprakash Jaiswal told the Sahara news channel.
“These were low-intensity bombs,” he said. “This has been done by some terrorist group which wants to destabilize the country.”
Another junior home minister, Shakeel Ahmad said at least two people had been killed and 55 wounded and taken to hospital.
“The government had received a threat e-mail and we are probing into it,” local state government Home Minister Amit Shahe told Reuters.
One television channel showed a bus with its side blown up, shattered windows and the roof half-destroyed. Another showed a dead dog, with blood nearby, lying beside a blownup bicycle.
Ahmedabad is the main city in the communally sensitive and relatively wealthy western state of Gujarat, scene of deadly riots in 2002 in which 2,500 people are thought to have died, most of them Muslims killed by rampaging Hindu mobs.
Both states targeted in the bomb attacks are ruled by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and are among the country’s fastest-growing.
Suspicion is already falling on Islamist militants intent on destabilizing India by fanning tensions between Hindus and Muslims, and police were swiftly deployed in Ahmedabad on Saturday to maintain calm. […]
So far though, police say they have few leads into Friday’s Bangalore bombings.
On Saturday, another unexploded bomb was found near a shopping mall in Bangalore, but it was unclear whether the bomb was newly planted or meant to have exploded during Friday’s attacks, police said.
“Special squads have been formed to find out who is behind the blasts. We have not got any conclusive leads yet,” Bangalore’s Additional Commissioner of Police M.R. Pujar told Reuters on Saturday.
India has suffered a wave of bombings in recent years, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains.
It is unusual for any group to claim responsibility for attacks, but India says it suspects militant groups from neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh of helping to plan and carry out many of the attacks.
India’s home ministry said on Friday it suspected “a small militant group” was behind the Bangalore attacks, while some police officials said they suspected the blasts could be the work of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India….