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13-MAY-2008: The site of a blast in Jaipur, India, Tuesday, May 13,
2008. A hospital official says at least 45 people have been killed in
six bomb blasts that ripped through crowded areas of a city in
western India. N.S. Shekhawat, the superintendent of the Sawai Man
Singh hospital in Jaipur, where most of the bodies were taken, says
at least 45 people have died. Another 100 people have reportedly been
wounded in Tuesday's attacks. (AP Photo) [Photo copyright 2008 by AP]
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JAIPUR, India - Police imposed a daylong curfew in the western Indian city of Jaipur on Wednesday to prevent any retaliatory violence after a series of blasts in crowded areas left at least 80 people dead.LAST MINUTE TRAVEL DEALS Authorities suspect Islamic militants were behind the blasts, and they moved quickly to stop any potential clashes between the city's Hindu majority and its sizable Muslim minority. Police were deployed in force and people kept off the streets of Jaipur's old walled city, where all seven bombs went off on Tuesday. The bombers may have been aiming "to create communal tension", said Vasundhara Raje, the chief minister of Rajasthan state, of which Jaipur is the capital. "But there is peace in the city. The curfew is a precaution." With police seemingly everywhere, streets in the old city were largely devoid of pedestrians and shops throughout the rest of the Jaipur were also shuttered. The attack came a week before India's foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, was to visit Pakistan to discuss the rivals' four-year peace process. Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said Mukherjee would press Islamabad to act against Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups, which India accuses Pakistan of backing. "The absence of violence and stopping cross-border terrorism is a very high priority for India", Menon told reporters. But he stopped short of alleging a Pakistani hand in Tuesday's attack. "We are still in the process of investigating. I don't want to jump to conclusions", he said. Police in Jaipur have so far questioned nearly a dozen people. But no arrests have been made, and Raje told reporters that authorities only "have some slender leads." Nearly 200 people were wounded in the explosions in the city in western India known for its pink-hued palaces, said A.K. Jain, a top Rajasthan police official. Police said an eighth bomb was found and defused. "Obviously, it's a terrorist plot", said A.S. Gill, the police chief of Rajasthan, hours after the attack. "The way it has been done, the attempt was to cause the maximum damage to human life." The blasts began around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. One went off at a market near a temple dedicated to the Hindu monkey god Hanuman. Tuesday is the day of worship set aside for the deity and the temple was crowded with people offering prayers on the way home from work. Another bomb exploded near the city's Johari Bazaar jewelry market, a popular tourist attraction. The tourist season ended in March, however, and there was no indication that foreigners were caught in any of the bombings. Parikshit Bhandari saw the blast near the jewelry market and said there was "blood all around and wounded people crawling on the ground." Bombing sites were littered with dropped shopping bags, mangled bicycles, damaged cars and overturned bicycle rickshaws, the most popular mode of transport in the crowded lanes of Jaipur. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, as is the case with most bombings in India. But soon after the attack, authorities were suggesting blame would eventually fall on Pakistan and the Islamic militant groups India accuses it of backing. "One can't rule out the involvement of a foreign power", said India's junior home minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, using language commonly understood to refer to Pakistan. Indian authorities have blamed Pakistan-based Islamic extremist groups for a spate of bombings that have killed nearly 400 people in this predominantly Hindu country of 1.1 billion people since 2005. Pakistan, an overwhelmingly Muslim country, denies any role in the bombings. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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