Another serial bomb attack in India; the various news organizations differ on the exact number of bombs.
“7 blasts rock Bangalore; two killed, 20 wounded,” from the Times of India, July 25:
BANGALORE: Seven synchronized small bombs shook Bangalore during the busy lunch hour on Friday, leaving two killed and injuring 20 others, officials said.
Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar Bidri said the seven blasts went off within several minutes of each other at different spots across the city. One woman was killed in an explosion at a bus stop in the city’s Madiwala neighborhood, he said.
Another person died later of his injuries, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said.
Bidri said each of the small bombs contained the amount of explosives equal to “one or two grenades”.
The blasts took place at the Madiwala bus depot, Mysore road, Adugudi, Koramangla, Vittal Mallaya road, Langford Town and Richmond Town. The blasts took place within a span of 60 minutes.
“In all these cases they have created the blast using timer devices,” Bangalore Commissioner of Police Shankar Bidri told reporters at the site of one of the blasts. […]
M R Pujar, additional police commissioner for Bangalore said “crude explosives” had been used. “There were seven low-intensity explosions,” he said. “Some of them were in crowded areas.”
According to IB sources, SIMI [Students Islamic Movement of India] and LeT [Lashkar-e-Toiba] may be behind the Bangalore blasts and they could be retaliatory in nature….
More from Rediff, in “9 blasts rock Bengaluru; 2 killed, 6 injured,” by Vicky Nanjappa, July 25:
[…] The first two blasts occurred at Adugodi at 1.30 pm behind the famous Forum Mall, which is a major shopping destination in Bengaluru. The second bomb was placed near a granite factory under some granite slabs.
The blast at Madiwala occured near the check post at 1.50 pm, which were followed by a blast at Nayandahalli in a bus shelter at 2.10 pm. Between 2.10 and 2.30 pm very low intensity blasts were reported near the Mallya hospital at a park and on Richmond and Langford road. […]
Preliminary investigations show that the bombs were attached to a timer device and were triggered off by a mobile phone. A similar pattern was used in the Hyderbad twin blasts and also at Jaipur and Ajmer. […]
The IB says that the attack could be three pronged — one to scare the IT sector in Bengaluru, two to warn the Karnataka police in the wake of the arrests of SIMI cadres in Karnataka which led to the arrests of 10 supremos of SIMI in Indore and lastly as a retaliatory measure since the Bharatiya Janata Party is in power for the first time in south India.
Adopting the methodology of earlier bombings would help to create panic, while low-intensity, low casualty bombs, coupled with the coordination of the attacks would aim to intimidate with the message that the group is capable of more:
Looking closely at the manner in which the attacks were carried out, the IB says that it was more of an attempt to scare the people rather than kill. The bombs were of low intensity and the places in which they were hidden is a clear indication that the intention was more to scare the general public and in the case of the Madiwala and Adugodi explosions, the IT sector in particular. There are large number of IT professionals living in these two areas.