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Tuesday, Sep 30, 2008
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Two killed, 16 injured in blast in Gujarat town

Manas Dasgupta

A repeat of Mehrauli incident

AHMEDABAD: Two people were killed and 16 injured, three of them critically, in a bomb blast in the minority-dominated Tuka Bazar at Modasa town in Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district on Monday night.

The police said it was almost a re-enactment of Saturday’s bomb blast at Mehrauli in Delhi. As at Mehrauli, two persons riding a motorbike through the Tuka Bazar — a market full of eating houses where members of the minority community gathered after breaking the day’s “Roza” — dropped a bag outside a restaurant around 9.30 p.m. A resident, Jainuddin, picked up the bag and just as he was checking its contents, the bomb exploded, killing him on the spot. Ayub Ghori, who was injured, died in hospital.

The police cordoned off the area and were investigating the identity of the motorbike riders.

In the morning, 17 low-intensity crude bombs were recovered from the Kot-ni-Rang area at Kalupur in the old city of Ahmedabad. A bomb squad defused them.

An official of the squad said the bombs with shrapnel and other discarded materials were designed to create panic, not to cause grievous injuries. The bombs were kept in small tins in a bucket, which was left in a dustbin.

Centre monitoring situation

PTI reports:

The Union Home Ministry is closely monitoring the situation arising out of an explosion at Modasa. Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta was in touch with senior officials of the Gujarat government and police authorities there, a Home Ministry spokesperson said.

The Ministry appealed to the people to maintain calm and guard against rumours.

2 killed in Malegaon hotel blast

In Maharashtra, two people were killed and 35 injured in a blast in a hotel in the Bhikhu Chowk area of the communally sensitive, powerloom town of Malegaon on Monday night.

Eight others, including six policemen, were injured in stone throwing resorted to by a mob after the explosion, the police said. The mob also damaged the jeep of the sub-divisional-magistrate, the police said. The police fired in the air to disperse the mob.

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