The Indian Hyderabadi expat community in the Kingdom reacted in shock and horror over the news of a series of bomb blasts that ripped through the southern city late yesterday leaving 20 dead.

Police said the blasts, that also left over 50 injured, were a "terror attack." The blasts occurred about five minutes apart near a pair of cinemas and a bus stand in Dilsukhnagar, a crowded and congested area that houses a large fruit and vegetable market.

Government sources said the explosions were carried out by "a well-trained" group which timed the explosions to cause the maximum damage.

"This is a dastardly act and the guilty will not go unpunished," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said of the attacks. Singh also appealed for "calm" in the aftermath of the blasts.

City police said there had been three explosions, but Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said he could only confirm two. "The two bombs were placed on two different bicycles and the distance between them was about 100 to 150 metres," Shinde said.

He said Indian authorities had received "intelligence inputs in the (recent) days about the possibility of attacks and this information was shared with other states".

As reports of the blasts came in, Indian expatriates in Saudi Arabia from Hyderabad glued to television sets to get the latest details.

“This is very bad news because it has resulted in the loss of innocent lives,” said Mirza Shehryar Ahmad, a Riyadh-based IT consultant. “The first thing I did after hearing the news is to call my mother and father in the Old City.”

Zahiruddin Amjad, an arts teacher at a school in Dammam, called for bringing the culprits to book. “The situation is highly volatile because of the political instability in the state,” he said. “The Congress-led state government is very weak and has lost key allies because of bad political management.”

“In such a scenario, the anti-national elements must have found it easy to wreak havoc,” he said.

Yasser Ghouse, who runs a restaurant in Yanbu, appreciated Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s call for maintaining peace.

“This is a heinous act and the need of the hour is to maintain calm and to allow the law-enforcing authorities to do their job in unraveling the conspiracy and unmasking the bombers,” he said.

Shaker Mohiuddin from Jeddah said the people of Hyderabad have endured the worst in the past.

— With input from agencies