|
Bombs rip through crowded areas
25/08/2007 19:12 - (SA)
Hyderabad, India - A pair of bombings tore through crowded public areas in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Saturday, killing at least 34 people and leaving about 50 more wounded, officials said.
Security forces were put on alert across the city.
The blasts - one in a park during a laser show, and the other in a crowded market area - went off minutes apart, said a police official who spoke on condition his name not be used.
K Jana Reddy, the Home Minister for Andhra Pradesh state, where Hyderabad is located, said 28 people had been killed.
"This is a terrorist act," he told reporters, urging people to remain calm.
He said most of those killed were in the city's Kothi market, with the rest killed in the laser show in Lumbini park.
Television footage taken in the area where the show was held showed large pools of blood and dead bodies lying between rows of seats punctured by shrapnel.
Police officers with flashlights and sniffer dogs were searching under chairs looking for more explosive devices.
In May, a bomb at a historic Hyderabad mosque killed 11 people. Another five people died in clashes that erupted after that blast between security forces and Muslim protesters angered by what they said was a lack of police protection.
A series of terrorist bombings have ripped across India in the past two years.
In July 2006, bombs in seven Mumbai commuter trains killed more than 200 people. The bombings have been blamed on Pakistan-based Muslim militants.
- AP
|
News
