“The chief minister told newspersons here after an emergency cabinet meeting that terrorist organisations based in Bangladesh and Pakistan were also behind the bomb blast in Mecca Masjid on May 28 in which 11 people were killed,” the UNI said.
India’s federal government, which is discussing a raft of issues under a joint anti-terror mechanism with Pakistan, has not named any foreign country in the latest incident.
Former home minister and BJP leader L.K. Advani, while opposing the policy of appeasement, called for the Prevention of Terrorism Act to be immediately revived. The state unit of the party gave a call for a strike on Monday, with support from the communist parties, the UNI said.
Seven engineering students from Nasik in Maharashtra, two railway policemen from Madhya Pradesh, 12 women and three children were among the victims. Most of the dead or wounded were weekend revellers.
Agencies add: Police found 19 unexploded bombs in Hyderabad as New Delhi has sent extra personnel and bomb detection equipment to the city.
Police discovered the unexploded bombs -- most fitted with timers and placed in plastic bags -- at bus stops, by cinema halls, road junctions and pedestrian bridges and near a public water tap across the city.
A federal home ministry official said that about 22 people were being questioned.
Police reported that a man had been detained near Hyderabad on suspicion of selling bicycle ball-bearings that were used as pellets in the bombs.
“The metal pellets in the bombs had worked as deadly missiles, killing more people,” said Dr K. Shastry at a hospital that received many dead and wounded.
On Sunday, police patrols were visible in the city as Aug 26 is seen as an auspicious day for Hindus.
More than a dozen of the wounded were in serious condition.
Federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil revealed that authorities had ‘bits of information’ before Saturday that an attack was being planned, but they did not know a ‘time and place’. He declined to blame Muslim militants.
There was chaos at the city’s main Osmania hospital as wailing relatives thronged the hallways, searching for their missing loved ones.