27/07/2008
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Blow-ups galore in India's Ahmedabad; at least 21 killed
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AHMEDABAD, (India): Nearly 19 small bombs exploded in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, killing at least 21 people and wounding 55 others, 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, adding this has been done by terrorist group which wants to destabilise 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 said.
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 blown up 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. -Agencies
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