21 November 2004	Sunday	08 Shawwal 1425

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HYDERABAD, Nov 22: Rail traffic between Hyderabad-Kotri section remained suspended after two successive blasts destroyed small sections of railroad forcing Faisalabad Night Coach and Karachi Express to stop at Kotri railway station and Shah Rukn-e-Alam Express and Shalimar Express to halt at Hyderabad.

The first blast occurred at around 7:45pm followed by another blast separated by about seven to eight minutes about half a kilometre away, officials and eyewitnesses said.

Personnel of law-enforcement agencies rushed to the spot to cordon off the area. Apart from a minor injury sustained by a woman, no casualty was reported.

Officials of the bomb disposal squad who examined the sites of the blast said that the tracks had been damaged by high-explosive non-electrical device.

No railway department official could be contacted till the filing of this report for comments on the situation. The railway traffic was likely to be restored after the repair of both the tracks.

The first explosion damaged a piece of track less than a foot long while the second explosion blew up a section of track around one foot long. A railway official said that the scheduled time of arrival of the Shah Rukn-e-Alam Express at Hyderabad was 7:40pm but its arrived late today.