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Explosions rip through courts
23/11/2007 14:16 - (SA)
Lucknow - Nearly simultaneous
explosions from homemade bombs planted outside courts in three
northern Indian cities killed at least 12 people in what a
senior government official said were terrorist strikes.
Officials said around 50 people were wounded in the blasts
at Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow, all in the populous state of
Uttar Pradesh.
At least nine people were killed in Varanasi, one of
India's most scared Hindu pilgrim centres, senior state
official Nitin Gokaran said.
Three people were killed in Faizabad while there were no
casualties in the state capital Lucknow.
All three cities have a history of communal tensions
between India's majority Hindus and its minority Muslims.
"I believe it is the handiwork of groups who are trying to
spread terror in our country," junior Home Minister Sriprakash
Jaiswal told reporters.
India has been hit by blasts frequently in recent years and
most of them have been blamed on Pakistan-based Islamist
militant groups fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir.
Local TV channels showed what appeared to be at least one
dead lawyer, dressed in traditional black clothes, lying on the
ground. Dry leaves had fallen over his body.
Another body was lying face down in a pool of blood.
One injured man rode away on a motorcycle while a passerby
held a cloth or handkerchief to his blood-soaked head.
Lawyers protest
At least 15 people were killed and 60 wounded in three
explosions in Varanasi in 2006.
Faizabad is a twin city of Ayodhya, a Hindu holy centre
where hardline Hindu groups razed an ancient mosque in 1992,
saying it was built on the birthplace of Hindu god-king Ram.
Ayodhya has since been a flashpoint for Hindu-Muslim
tensions across the country and the disputed site was also
targeted by suspected Muslim militants in 2005.
Outside the Lucknow court, where police said the explosive
was attached to a motorcycle, lawyers gathered after the blast
to shout "Down with Pakistan".
The lawyers said they suspected the blast was in
retaliation for an attack by a mob on three suspected militants
of a Pakistani-based group when they appeared in court a few
days ago.
Police said the suspects had plotted to kidnap a top Indian
politician.
Last month, a small bomb exploded just after evening
prayers at Ajmer, an important and crowded Muslim shrine in
northwestern India, killing at least two people.
Indian officials say that militant groups target religious
centres in an attempt to divide majority Hindus and minority
Muslims and spark clashes.
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