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 Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:12 pm Post subject: MORE MUSLIM MADDNESS |
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Islamic group claims India blasts
By R.K. MISRA
July 27, 2008
AHMADABAD, India (AP) — An obscure Islamic group claimed
responsibility for a series of synchronized explosions that killed at
least 45 people in western India, warning of "the terror of Death" in
an e-mail sent to several television stations minutes before the
blasts.
Another unexploded bomb was found and defused early Sunday, said the
city's police commissioner, O.P. Mathur. He said police had detained
30 people.
"In the name of Allah the Indian Mujahideen strike again! Do whatever
you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!" said an
e-mail from the group sent to several Indian television stations
minutes before the blasts began.
The e-mail's subject line said "Await 5 minutes for the revenge of
Gujarat," an apparent reference to 2002 riots in the western state
which left 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. The historic city of
Ahmadabad was the scene of much of the 2002 violence.
Saturday's e-mail, sent from a Yahoo account and written in English,
was made available to AP by CNN-IBN, one of the TV stations that
received the warning.
State government spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas said 45 people were killed
and 161 wounded when at least 16 bombs went off Saturday evening in
several crowded neighborhoods. The attack came a day after seven
smaller blasts killed two people in the southern technology hub of
Bangalore.
Investigators in Surat, a city about 160 miles south of Ahmadabad,
found a car carrying detonators and a liquid that police suspect may
be ammonium nitrate, a chemical often used in explosive devices, city
police Chief R.M.S. Brar told reporters.
Cities around the country were put on alert and security was stepped
up at markets, hospitals, airports and train stations.
The e-mail was sent by a group calling itself Indian Mujahedeen which
was unknown before May, when it said it was behind a series of
bombings in Jaipur, also in western India, that killed 61 people.
In its e-mail, the group did not mention the bombings in Bangalore and
it was not clear if the attacks were connected.
"An e-mail was received by many news organizations. We are inquiring
into that. We haven't traced it yet," city police Chief A.N. Roy said.
The Saturday bombs went off in two separate spates. The first, near a
busy market, left some of the dead sprawled beside stands piled high
with fruit, next to twisted bicycles. The second group of blasts went
off near a hospital.
The side of a bus was blown off and its windows shattered, while
another vehicle was engulfed in flames. Most of the blasts took place
in the narrow lanes of the older part of Ahmadabad, which is tightly
packed with homes and small businesses. Bomb-sniffing dogs scoured the
areas.
Distraught relatives of the victims crowded the city's hospitals. One
of the wounded was a 6-year-old boy whose father was killed in the
blasts. He lay in a hospital bed with his arms covered in bandages and
wounds on his face.
Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat state where Ahmadabad is
located, called the blasts "a crime against humanity." He said the
bombings appeared to have been masterminded by a group or groups who
"are using a similar modus operandi all over the country."
India has been hit repeatedly by bombings in recent years. Nearly all
have been blamed on Islamic militants who allegedly want to provoke
violence between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority, although
officials rarely offer hard evidence implicating a specific group.
The perpetrators also rarely claim responsibility — a fact that raised
doubts about the Indian Mujahedeen when it took credit in May for
attacking Jaipur.
Fears that an attack could spark religious riots are real in India,
which has seen sporadic violence between Hindus and Muslims since
independence from Britain in 1947.
Those fears were amplified by the recent history of the 2002 religious
riots. The violence was triggered by a fire that killed 60 passengers
on a train packed with Hindu pilgrims. Hindu extremists blamed the
deaths on Muslims and rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods, although
the cause of the blaze remains unclear.
Ahmadabad is also known for the elegant architecture of its mosques
and mausoleums, a rich blend of Muslim and Hindu styles. It was
founded in the 15th century and served as a sultanate, fortified in
1487 with a wall six miles in circumference.
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