At least 11 people were killed after two bombs ripped through a crowded shopping area in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad last evening.
Officials said the death toll was expected to rise as more than 50 people were injured in the explosions that occurred within minutes of each other in the city’s teeming Dilkush Nagar district at about 7pm local time.
The bombing was the second to hit Hyderabad since the May 2007 blast in a 17th century mosque in which 11 people died in this city of more than 10 million divided between Hindus and Muslims.
Federal home minister Sushil Shinde said the bombs were attached to two bicycles about 150 meters apart and detonated at a time when thousands of people had congregated to shop, eat and go to the cinema.
The outrage was described by prime minister Manmohan Singh as a “dastardly act” that would not go unpunished.
Shinde claimed Indian intelligence agencies had received prior information about the imminence of these bombings and the information passed onto the targeted provinces.
But senior officials in Andhra Pradesh state, of which Hyderabad is the capital, said the information forwarded from the federal Intelligence Bureau was “non-specific” in nature and hence “un-actionable”.
