Indian police defused four home-made bombs found on a train in the eastern city of Kolkata on Monday, police said, three days after a blast at a mosque killed 11 people in the south of the country.
The train was headed for Tarakeshwar, a Hindu holy town, about two hours west of Kolkata. The bombs were found during a routine security check minutes before the train was about to leave the city’s Howrah station.
”The explosives recovered from a local train today [Monday] have turned out to be crude bombs,” said Amar Kanti Sarkar, a top railway police officer.
”We had initially thought they were improvised explosive devices but a careful examination revealed they were not so powerful,” he told Reuters.
The four bombs were concealed in two metal boxes, wrapped in packets and kept inside a bag, he said.
”We have been alerted of possible blasts and today’s haul is a result of intensified patrolling,” Sarkar added.
Security was stepped up across Kolkata, particularly at train and bus stations, police and witnesses said. Extra forces were deployed and passengers and rail cars were being checked closely, they said.
Warnings were being issued on public-address systems to report unclaimed objects to the police.
Eleven people were killed in the southern city of Hyderabad in a bomb blast at a 17th century mosque during Friday prayers. Five people were shot dead by police trying to stop subsequent violent demonstrations in the communally sensitive city.
Indian intelligence agencies and security analysts say Islamist militant groups, backed by Pakistani spy agency ISI, increasingly target Muslim and Hindu religious places to trigger communal clashes between the two communities.
A Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson said Islamabad regretted that so many innocent people had become victims in the Hyderabad ”terrorist act”.
But she rejected what she called ”baseless insinuations” of any Pakistani hand in the attack.
Hindus account for more than 80% of officially secular India’s 1,1-billion population. With an estimated 140-million Muslims, the country is home to the world’s third largest Islamic population after Indonesia and Pakistan. — Reuters