At least 12 people have been killed and scores injured in twin bomb
blasts on Thursday that authorities believe may have been a terrorist
attack in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. There has been no
official confirmation as to the nature of the blasts, but government
officials have said they was carried out by a “well-trained” group and
were coordinated.
Local media reports that the blasts comes two days after government
security agencies sent an advisory to states to tighten security in
light of potential threats from militant groups operating in the region
related to the recent state executions of terror suspects Ajmal Kasab
and Mohammed Afzal Guru.Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
appealed to the public to remain calm in tweets sent out after the
attacks on Thursday evening. “This is a dastardly attack, the guilty
will not go unpunished,” he tweeted. The attack was the first major bomb
attack in India since a blast outside a court in New Delhi in 2011 that killed 11 people.
(PHOTO: Tens of Millions Gather at India’s Maha Kumbh Mela)
India has been on alert since Guru, who was Kashmiri, was executed
earlier this month in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail. Guru was convicted in
involvement in the 2001 attacks on parliament in which 14 people were
killed, but many in Kashmir in particular believe that he did not
receive a fair trial and were upset by the handling of his execution.
Forensics teams have reportedly been deployed to the bomb sites along
with officials from the National Investigative Agency and Intelligence
Bureau. The bombs, which authorities say were attached to two bicycles,
were detonated around 7p.m. outside a movie theater and bus station in a
busy area of the city of some 10 million people, according to police.Singh, in addition to condemning the attacks, announced the
government would give 200,000 rupees ($3,700) to relatives of the
deceased, and 50,000 ($900) to those injured in the attacks. Further
compensation has also been offered by the chief minister of the state of
Andhra Pradesh, where Hyderabad in located.
(MORE: 10 Killed in Explosions in Southern Indian City)
Alms giving after terrorist attacks, though, is an unfortunate tactic
all too frequently deployed by the government. Longstanding questions
about the capability of India’s security and intelligence
infrastructure—which reached their highest pitch following the shocking,
deadly 2008 assault on one of Mumbai’s ritziest neighborhood—are being
once more raised. And speculation swirls: some analysts point the finger
at the Indian Mujahedin, an Islamist extremist group. In 2007,
Hyderabad suffered a twin-bombing attack that claimed at least 42 lives;
blame then fell on Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islam (HuJI), another extremist
group then anchored in Bangladesh.
But no clear leads have emerged yet and both politicians and TV
commentators urged caution against “rumor mongering” in the breathless
hours that followed the attack. Hyderabad, a historic city that’s now
one of India’s leading tech centers, is also at the heart of the
Telengana movement, which seeks to carve a new state out of Andhra
Pradesh. Tensions surrounding the bid have flared up in recent years.
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