NINE PEOPLE died and about 60 were injured in a bomb attack at a restaurant popular with tourists in the western Indian city of Pune at the weekend.
The powerful bomb left in a backpack under a table at the German Bakery, and which killed two foreigners, is the first major terrorist strike in India after the three-day siege of nearby Mumbai in November 2008 in which 166 people died.
“It appears that an unattended package was noticed in the bakery by one of the waiters who apparently attempted to open it, detonating the bomb inside,” federal home secretary GK Pillai said after Saturday’s blast.
“We heard a big noise and we all rushed out. The impact was so great that there were body parts everywhere” Vinod Dhale, a restaurant worker, said.
Six people died on the spot while three later succumbed to injuries at local hospitals.
Federal home minister P Chidambaram described the bomb as “a significant terrorist incident” saying that all evidence pointed to a deliberate and well planned plot. He said one or two people acting as customers had left the backpack carrying the bomb inside the bakery.
Initial investigations indicate that the bomb was detonated by remote control, possibly by a special device or even a mobile telephone.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast and a security red alert has been issued in the capital New Delhi, in the central Indian city of Indore, and Kanpur in the east following intelligence alerts of possible terror strikes in all three places.
Senior security officials indicated that suspicion fell on Pakistan-based Lashkahr-i-Taiba (LiT, or the Army of the Pure) terrorist group which India holds responsible for executing the Mumbai attack and on “sleeper” cadres of a local militant group called Indian Mujahideen (IM) which it often used.
Both Islamist groups are known to have worked in tandem in the past with the LiT providing the funding and planning and the IM the cadres to carry out deadly bombings in crowded places, security officials said.
The IM was responsible for bomb blasts in bazaars in Delhi that killed more than 60 people in 2005 and a well-planned assault on the Indian parliament in 2001 that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a fourth war.
The bomb blast in Pune comes a day after India and Pakistan agreed to meet for talks in Delhi on February 25th, giving rise to speculation in diplomatic and security circles that terror groups were once again trying to derail bilateral peace talks which could eventually lead to action against them.
But so far India has refrained from blaming Pakistan directly, with officials cautioning the media against harmful speculation.