Indian police defuse more bombs after weekend blasts

INDIA: Indian police on Tuesday defused at least two live bombs and were searching for more in a city in western Gujarat state, where a weekend series of bombings killed 49 people, local media reported.

The bombs were discovered in the diamond-processing city of Surat, located 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Ahmedabad, where the weekend explosions took place, Indian news channels said.

Police were searching for other explosive devices, the reports said.

Two car bombs were discovered in Surat on Sunday, one day after a string of 16 bombings in the state’s commercial capital Ahmedabad killed 49 people and left about 160 others wounded.

The targets in Ahmedabad included markets, buses and hospitals treating the victims.

Surat’s police commissioner asked people to stay indoors and for cinema halls and shopping centres to shut down on the weekend, but businesses in the port city were reopening Tuesday.

Fears are high that the country could see more strikes after a shadowy Islamist group calling itself the “Indian Mujahedeen” claimed responsibility for Saturday’s bombings and warned of more attacks.

The Gujarat attacks came the day after a string of bombs went off Friday in the southern high-tech city of Bangalore, leaving one dead and eight injured.

New Delhi, Tuesday, AFP