The Hindu : Front Page : 30 killed as bomb blasts rock Hyderabad

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Sunday, Aug 26, 2007
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30 killed as bomb blasts rock Hyderabad

City Bureau

Simultaneous explosions target weekend crowds; tension mounts in sensitive areas

— PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

When terror struck: Bodies lie strewn at the Lumbini Park in Hyderabad after a powerful bomb explosion on Saturday evening.

HYDERABAD: Thirty people were killed and scores injured when two powerful, simultaneous explosions ripped through a crowded place at Koti and at Lumbini Park in front of the Secretariat here at 8.10 p.m. on Saturday.

The injured were shifted to hospitals. The condition of many is said to be critical. Medical and para-medical staff at the Osmania General Hospital were struggling to cope with the situation. Chaos prevailed at the bomb blast sites.

Police declared a red alert throughout the capital and in the neighbouring Cyberabad commissionerate.

The popular Lumbini park was crowded during the weekend and the bomb went off near the spot where about 40 engineering college students from Nasik in Maharashtra were watching a laser show. They were on an excursion trip.

The park is on the banks of the Hussainsagar lake and right in front of the main gate of the Secretariat.

Till last reports came in, six persons were killed and at least 20 injured in the blast at the park.

In Koti, one of the most crowded junctions in central Hyderabad, an explosive device went off at Gokul Chat, a popular eatery, killing 24 people. Passers-by stopped a city bus, carried the injured into it and shifted them to the Osmania General Hospital.

The Bharatiya Janata Party Greater Hyderabad committee was holding a meeting at the VV Function Hall, barely a kilometre from the Koti bomb blast site.

The meeting was being addressed by the former BJP president and MP, M. Venkaiah Naidu.

Tension mounted in the sensitive areas of the twin cities; police stepped up mobile and foot patrolling.

The entire city police has been ordered ‘stand-to.’

Racket busted

The explosions come hours after the city police busted an international counterfeit currency racket with the arrest of four persons, including a Dubai national, and the seizure of fake currency of Rs. 2.36 crore from the old city.

Earlier in the day, Commissioner of Police Balwinder Singh told reporters that it was an “international racket of smuggling sophisticated fake Indian currency from Pakistan and Dubai.”

On May 18, nine persons were killed in a bomb blast in the Mecca Masjid near Charminar in the southern part of the city.

PTI reports:

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Rajsekhara Reddy said it is definitely a terrorist act.

Similar explosives

A senior police official said the explosives used in the blasts were similar to the one used by terrorists in the Mecca Masjid blasts.

Police were conducting searches at railway stations and bus depots.

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the blasts and expressed deep concern.

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