Seven synchronised blasts ripped through the Indian tourist city of Jaipur Tuesday evening, killing at least 60 people and injuring nearly 100 others - and officials feared the death toll could rise.
The carefully choreographed blasts at six spots went off within a space of 20 minutes and occurred in the Tripolia Bazar, where a Hanuman temple that draws a large number of devotees is located, as well as at Manas Chowk, Badi Choupal, Chhoti Choupal, Sanganeri Gate and Johari Bazar areas that are home to mixed populations of Hindus and Muslims.
"Such acts of terror will not be tolerated and the perpetrators will be brought to book," Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia said soon after the blasts, even as officials swung into operation to clamp stricter security measures in place.
The bombings, as also a gun battle in Jammu on Sunday between the security forces and militants that killed six, occurred days before India and Pakistan are to resume their composite dialogue process that has been stalled by the fluid political situation in the neighbouring country.
Tuesday's explosions were among the worst terror strikes in India after the Mumbai suburban train blasts in July 2006 that killed over 180 people. Jaipur is at the centre of India's famous Golden Triangle tourist circuit that draws thousands of foreign visitors every year. It was not immediately known whether any foreign or Indian tourist was a casualty in the explosions.
"At least 60 people have been killed and about double the number injured. It's incredible," Rohit Singh, Rajasthan's chief information commissioner, told IANS. Officials feared the number of casualties would mount.
"You can say it is a terrorist attack. Maximum damage has been caused to human lives," said Rajasthan police chief A.S. Gill.
The medium intensity explosions, the first major terror attack since the serial blasts in Uttar Pradesh in November last year, threw life out of gear in Jaipur and prompted a nation-wide alert to be sounded.
Anti-riot police were deployed in some of the crowded areas of the famous pink city to thwart any possible retaliation or riots, and the entire walled city area where the blasts occurred was cordoned off.
The mangled remains of bicycles and cars splattered with bloodstains pockmarked several of the blast sites. Those hit by the shrapnel thrown up by the blasts writhed in pain even as bystanders moved in to shift them to hospitals.
A priest at the Hanuman temple said: "At around 7.30 p.m. there was a big noise and I suddenly saw people lying in a pool of blood. I was not aware it was a bomb blast. My father was also hit by a splinter and died of injuries."
There were a few hundred people at the Hanuman temple when the blast took place since it was a Tuesday, considered auspicious among Hindus.
"There was total chaos after the explosions and many have been killed and injured," said an eyewitness, Lakshmi Narayan.
"I was standing at Manas Chowk when a huge and thundering explosion occurred," he added, while being treated at a hospital.
Following the blasts, most of the injured were taken to the Sawai Mansingh Hospital. People were seen standing outside the hospital appealing to passers-by to donate blood for the injured.
President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani condemned the blasts and appealed for calm. Home Minister Shivraj Patil cut short his two-day trip to the northeast and rushed to Jaipur in an Indian Air Force aircraft.
The home ministry also issued an advisory to all states to remain extra vigilant following the Jaipur blasts.
"It is very unfortunate this has happened. I appeal to the people to stay calm," said former vice president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who is a former Rajasthan chief minister.
"I condemn this act of terrorism that was meant to create tension between the people," said Sachin Pilot, who represents Rajasthan's Dausa constituency in the Lok Sabha.
"We must not let terrorists succeed in what they intended to do," Pilot added.
This is the first terror attack in Rajasthan after two pilgrims were killed and 17 wounded in a bomb blast at the Ajmer Sharif shrine seven months ago.
"There is panic in the city as this is happening in the midst of the IPL (Indian Premier League) cricket frenzy. Most of the police and security forces are busy in the preparations of the IPL matches," said Manas Kumar, an eyewitness.
According to the police, the first blast took place at the Manas Chowk Police Station area. The second blast was near the most famous sweet shop in the city, Lakshmi Mishtaan Bhandar that is in Johari Bazaar.
The third blast took place in Tripolia Bazar where a Hanuman temple drew a large number of devotees Tuesday, while the fourth and fifth blasts were reported at Badi Choupal and Chhoti Choupal.
"It is clearly a well planned operation and strangely the state police had no intelligence information. All the blasts happened when people were milling around these places," said a top intelligence officer.
"We have sent a bomb disposal team to Jaipur. The team would be investigating the nature of blasts and chemical used in these deadly blasts," said J.K. Dutta, the Director General of the National Security Guard.
Home ministry officials said the bombs were planted in bicycles and forensic teams were being dispatched to determine the nature of explosives. At least one explosive device was detected and defused, officials said.
"Look, it is difficult to say what (explosive) was used but it could be RDX or even ammonium nitrate," said a ministry official.
Rajasthan's Chief Secretary B.C. Sawant said that police were deployed in all communally sensitive locations.
In the national capital, Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said: "An alert has been sounded in the wake of the Jaipur blasts."
Additional police personnel have been deployed along with bomb disposal squads at Delhi Metro stations, at railway stations and bus terminals.
"Extra security cover has been extended to all the religious places, including the Jama Masjid, Akashardham and Iskcon temples," Bhagat added.
Delhi Police sleuths have put road barricades at various intersections and dog squads have been deployed at railway stations. Metal detectors are in place at entry points in busy markets and security agencies are keeping a close watch over all VIP areas.
At least 434 people have died in terror attacks across India in the past two years. Six serial blasts in the cities of Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi in November last year ripped through civil court premises, killing 13 people.
Indo-Asian News Service
Benazir Bhutto, then prime minister of Pakistan, carried critical nuclear data on CDs in her overcoat to Pyongyang in 1993 and brought back North Korea's missile information on her return journey, says a new political biography of the late leader.
The shocking revelation about Pakistan's alleged role in North Korea's illicit nuclear weapons programme is chronicled in detail in veteran journalist Shyam Bhatia's "Goodbye Shahzadi".
Bhatia, who says Bhutto acted as a “female James Bond”, has based his book on long personal conversations with the late prime minister.
"As she was due to visit North Korea at the end of 1993 she was asked and readily agreed to carry nuclear data on her person and hand it over on arrival in Pyongyang," writes the London-based Bhatia while recalling a conversation with Bhutto in her villa in Dubai villa 2003.
"...before leaving Islamabad, she shopped for an overcoat with the 'deepest possible pockets' into which she transferred CDs containing the scientific data about uranium enrichment that the North Koreans wanted," says Bhatia.
"She did not tell me how many CDs were given to her to carry, or who they were given to when she arrived in Pyongyang, but she implied with a glint in her eye that she acted as a two-way courier, bringing North Korea's missile information on CDs back with her on the return journey," Bhatia writes.
Bhutto's interest in North Korean missile technology was triggered by India's testing of the long-range Agni missile, capable of hitting all Pakistan's population centres, in 1989, he says.
"When she came into power for the second time in 1993, there were agonized discussions underway about how Pakistan could augment and strengthen its existing missile capabilities."
In 1993, says Bhatia, the central question was how the barter for enrichment of uranium (which Pakistan's nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan had mastered) for missiles (North Korea) could be effected.
"Pakistan was under the spotlight as it had never been before, with India, Russia and the secret services of the West monitoring every nuance of the country's military research.
"This was where Benazir came in useful," the author states while trying to explain why Bhutto was chosen as a courier for this top-secret mission.
Bhatia's candid biography of Bhutto, based on a 34-year-old friendship dating back to student days, evokes a multi-hued portrait of the Pakistani leader.
Bhutto was truly versatile, the author recalls: a sensitive human being who idolised her father and a fiery debater who became president of the Oxford Union Debating Society. He also delves into her friendship with Peter Galbraith, the son of former US ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith, and the charges of corruption that still shadows her husband Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) after Bhutto was brutally killed Dec 27 last year.
The author has more details on collusion between Pakistani and North Korean nuclear scientists, which seems to confirm what many in the West suspected: the Islamabad-Pyongyang axis in non-proliferation which was in turn allegedly aided by Beijing.
Faced with mounting international pressure to shut down their plutonium facilities, North Korean scientists looked to Pakistan for help to develop a parallel enrichment programme.
Says Bhatia, "Pakistan was ideally placed to help because of the enrichment secrets that A.Q. Khan, the Dutch-trained metallurgist, had stolen from European laboratories, and who so impressed Zulfikar (Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani prime minister and Benazir's father who was hanged in 1979) with his boast that Pakistan could match and even surpass as South Asia's leading nuclear weapons state."
"Later, Khan and colleagues from the Pakistani scientific community would become regular visitors to North Korea. By 1998, there were nine military flights a month ferrying military officers and scientists between Islamabad and Pyongyang."
Indo-Asian News Service
KERALA EXAMINATION RESULTS 2008
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The Kerala SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) Examination held in 2008.