AHMEDABAD, India: Sixteen small bombs exploded in the Indian city of Ahmedabad yesterday, killing at least 29 people and wounding 88, a day after another set of blasts in the country’s IT hub, officials said.
On Friday, eight bombs exploded in quick succession in the southern information technology city of Bangalore, killing at least two people and wounding six others.
Yesterday’s blasts were in Ahmedabad’s crowded old city dominated by the Muslim community.
Three of the bombs blew up near hospitals. “We saw a blue bag near the trauma center, and before we could react we saw it explode in a shine of blinding light, and some 40 people were hit by flying shrapnel,” said Dr. Vipul Patil at the privately run Dhanwantari Hospital. Federal experts said the explosives were packed with steel-ball bearings and nuts and bolts, with the objective to cause maximum casualties. The bombs were detonated with timer devices, officials said.
Ahmedabad was hit by widespread Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002, which left at least 2,500 people, mostly Muslims, dead.
“The blasts occurred within 90 minutes,” Narendra Modi, the state’s chief minister, told reporters.
Several TV channels said they had received an e-mail from a group calling itself the “Indian Mujahideen” claiming responsibility for the blasts. The same group claimed responsibility for eight bombs that killed 63 people in the western city of Jaipur in May.
One television channel showed a bus with its side blown up, shattered windows and the roof half-destroyed. “The bus had just started when the blast occurred,” P.K Pathak, a retired insurance official who was traveling in another bus, said. “Many people standing on the exit door fell down. There was fire and smoke all over. We got down from our bus and rushed to help them.”
Both Ahmedabad and Bangalore are administrative headquarters of states ruled by the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
India has suffered a wave of bombings in recent years, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains. India says it suspects militant groups from Pakistan and Bangladesh are behind many of the attacks.
So far, police say they have few leads into Friday’s Bangalore bombings. Yesterday, another unexploded bomb was found near a shopping mall there, but it was unclear whether it was newly planted or meant to go off during Friday’s attacks.
