MUMBAI, Nov 21: Men riding a motorcycle threw two bombs into a mosque in western India on Friday, wounding 35 people and triggering sporadic violence as angry crowds set fire to shops and vehicles.

The blast in Parbhani town, 500kms east of Mumbai, came during Friday prayers.

The attack sparked tension in the town of some 500,000 people as groups of youth threw stones and set shops and vehicles afire, police said.

Officials said they did not know who had thrown the bombs in Friday’s attack. They said a curfew had been imposed to curb violence in the town and there had been no fresh trouble since then.

“There has been no violence since curfew was clamped in the evening,” a police official said.

“But we are not taking chances because the situation is still tense. Any provocation could lead to a flare-up. Police are patrolling the streets all night,” he said.

Pravin Deshpande, a Parbhani-based journalist, said he saw groups of people pelting houses with stones and one group attacked a news photographer, snatched his camera and removed its film. “About a dozen shops in the main market were on fire. The fire spread fast,” Mr Deshpande said.

Chhagan Bhujbal, Deputy Chief Minister of the state of Maharashtra, where Parbhani is located, said two of the injured were in critical condition. “Two crude bombs were thrown at a mosque in the Medina Nagar area. They were thrown by a pillion rider on a motorcycle,” Mr Bhujbal said at a news conference in Mumbai.—Reuters