NEW DELHI, Aug 1: Four successive explosions in Pune sent India’s security agencies into a scramble on Wednesday and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said a man, the only one slightly wounded in the low intensity blasts around the city’s cultural hub, was being interrogated as a suspect.

Mr Shinde, who was given the home portfolio in Tuesday’s cabinet reshuffle, was scheduled to visit Pune on Wednesday. He clarified that a music auditorium, in the vicinity of one of the explosions, was not where he was due to attend a function. Mr Shinde is a senior Dalit leader from Maharashtra.

The explosions took place near the Balgandharva Theatre, at Dena Bank branch and a McDonald’s joint, while one blast was reported in a dustbin in the Junglee Maharaj Road area, police said. The entire area was cordoned off. Mr Shinde told reporters in Delhi that a unit of the newly formed National Intelligence Agency was on its way to Pune together with a batch of bomb experts.

In February 2010, 17 people were killed in a bomb blast at the German Bakery near Pune's Osho ashram. After being arrested in the US, the alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Coleman Headley reportedly confessed to having filmed the bakery to help in the planning and execution of the terror attack. Apart from some shadowy Indian Muslims, Hindu extremists have also been active in Maharashtra in carrying out false flag attacks blamed on Muslims.

The fact that the usually corrosive TV channels have refrained from naming Pakistan seems to be of a piece with the Indian government’s official announcement earlier on Wednesday of allowing FDI from Pakistan in nearly all areas except defence, nuclear and one or two other sensitive industries.

Home Secretary R. K. Singh told NDTV that the injured person is being treated as suspect and questioned by the police. He said a terror angle could not be ruled out. The explosions took place during the evening rush hour.