Authorities believe Bangladesh-based Islamic extremists may have been behind a pair of bombings that tore through a popular family restaurant and an outdoor arena in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Saturday, killing at least 42 people, Indian officials said on Sunday.
”Available information points to the involvement of terrorist organisations based in Bangladesh,” said YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the Chief Minister for Andhra Pradesh state, where Hyderabad is located.
Reddy did not name the group, but Indian media reports, quoting unnamed security officials, identified Harkat-ul-Jehad-i-Islami.
Saturday’s attacks were the latest in a series of bombings to hit India in the past year, and nearly all have been blamed on Islamic extremists with foreign connections — even when the attacks have targeted Muslims.
Authorities say Harkat was also behind the bombing of a historic Hyderabad mosque in May that killed 11 people, although little evidence linking the group to the blasts has been made public and many Muslims say Hindu extremists were to blame. Following that attack, five people were killed in clashes between security forces and Muslim protesters angered by what they said was a lack of police protection.
Sunday’s media reports cited unnamed officials. Publicly, however, officials did not immediately say who they thought was behind the bombings, perhaps fearing such accusations could stir up trouble in this city with a history of Hindu-Muslim violence.
Both the restaurant and the park were popular with Hindus and Muslims.
The restaurant was destroyed by the bomb placed at the entrance, and most of the deaths reportedly occurred in the blast. Blood-covered tin plates and broken glasses littered the road outside.
The other blast struck a laser show at an auditorium in Lumbini park, leaving pools of blood and dead bodies between rows of seats punctured by shrapnel. Some seats were hurled 30m away.
By Sunday morning, the death toll had risen to 42 as victims succumbed to injuries sustained in the attacks, said K Jana Reddy, the state home minister. About 50 people were wounded in the two blasts.
Two other bombs were defused in the city on Saturday, one under a footbridge in the busy Bilsukh Nagar commercial area and another in a movie theatre in the Narayanguba neighbourhood, a police official said. Late-night movie showings were cancelled across the city.
Much of India’s Hindu-Muslim animosity is rooted in disputes over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, divided between India and mostly Muslim Pakistan but claimed in its entirety by both countries. More than a dozen Islamic insurgent groups are fighting for Kashmir’s independence or its merger with Pakistan.
More than 80% of India’s 1,1-billion people are Hindu and 13% are Muslim. But in Hyderabad, Muslims make up 40% of the population of seven million.
Little progress has been made in the investigation into the May mosque bombing. Underlying the divide, Muslim leaders have said they do not trust local police to handle the investigation into the attack.
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, attacks blamed on Pakistan-based Muslim militants. — Sapa-AP