MUMBAI, Sept 8: Some 37 people were killed and 50 injured on Friday when three bombs exploded as hundreds of Muslims poured out of a mosque in western India, officials said.
Police said one of the bombs went off at 1:50 pm (0820 GMT) at the Nurani Mosque in Malegon which was packed with devotees gathered for Shab-i-Barat, when Muslims traditionally pray at the graves of their ancestors.
R.R. Patil, deputy chief minister of the western Maharashtra state, where Malegaon is located, said three and not two blasts claimed the lives of 37 people, the Press Trust of India reported.
Two separate blasts also occurred at the town’s Mushaira Chowk and Ayesha Nagar localities, Patil told reporters in Mumbai.
Malegaon police control room also put the death toll at 37 and said an unspecified number of injured victims have been taken away by relatives for treatment elsewhere.
“From hospital reports we have compiled a list of 37 dead,” said police control room spokesman sub-inspector Kedar who uses one name.
Earlier, Indian Home Secretary V.K. Duggal had put the toll at 30 killed and 50 injured in two blasts in the textile town, 180 kilometres from Mumbai.
One bomb tied to the back of a parked bicycle went off as the faithful left the mosque, he said.
“No one has taken responsibility for the blasts,” Mr Duggal said in New Delhi.
Television pictures showed men and boys trampling on bloodied bodies as they battled to escape through a tunnel from the walled mosque compound.
The panicked crowds stumbled and jumped over bodies strewn across the tunnel entrance.
Bystanders hauled children to safety as survivors loaded bodies into sheets and on to hand carts.
Groaning injured men and women lay with the dead in the streets.
Malegaon chief health officer Bharat Wagh had earlier said some 125 people had been hurt.
“No one has taken responsibility for the blasts ... details are still sketchy,” Mr Duggal said.
The blasts came two months after an attack on seven trains in Mumbai that killed 186 people and was blamed on Islamic militants targeting wealthy Hindus.
India avoided blaming any group for those blasts but described them as a “terrorist act” designed to stoke communal tensions.
A curfew was slapped on Malegaon and the police was put on high alert the state.
In New Delhi, the national government alerted state administrations to prevent Hindu-Muslim violence after the blasts.
New Delhi rushed federal troops including its elite Rapid Action Force to Malegaon where casualties were taken to three hospitals.—AFP
MUMBAI, Sept 8: Some 37 people were killed and 50 injured on Friday when three bombs exploded as hundreds of Muslims poured out of a mosque in western India, officials said.
