By IANS
Lucknow/New Delhi : It was a normal Friday afternoon with thousands of lawyers and their clients milling around, till coordinated blasts ripped through the civil court premises of three cities in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh killing at least 13 people.
Terror came calling in India again for the sixth time year, this time in the cities of Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi in the north when six blasts ripped through the civil court premises within five minutes of each other.
At least 127 people have died in these bombings that have taken place from Ludhiana in the north to Hyderabad in the south, all of them bearing the hallmark of precision planning and ruthlessness.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was in Uganda attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), reacted with shock and promptly announced ex-gratia relief of Rs.100,000 for the next of kin of the dead and Rs.50,000 for the seriously injured.
The US and Britain also reacted swiftly to condemn the blasts.
A national alert was declared and security tightened around sensitive installations like the Supreme Court in the national capital as well as in most states as details of the bombings began to filter in.
In Uttar Pradesh, the blast sites were sealed off after the synchronised explosions around 1.30 p.m. just when people were getting ready for lunch.
Nine people were killed and 40 injured in the temple town of Varanasi, 300 km from Lucknow, in three blasts within the court compound. In Faizabad, 120 km from the state capital, there were two blasts that claimed the lives of four people.
The explosion in Lucknow was low in intensity and did not result in any casualties. But it was a narrow miss that sent dozens of lawyers and litigants running helter-skelter.
Hours after the blasts, a bomb detection squad discovered an unexploded bomb in the local court compound. Officials busy trying to defuse the bomb said it could have caused major damage “if it had exploded”.
Most of the dead in the latest round of terror were lawyers though the dead were yet to be identified, even hours later.
State Director General of Police (DGP) Vikram Singh said the attacks were planned well in advance.
“The bombs used in the blasts were not crude, it was all pre-planned. The explosives were not plastic. Pellets were used in the blasts,” he said.
“All the blasts took place within five minutes between 1.26 p.m. and 1.31 p.m.”
A four-member team of the elite National Security Guards (NSG) has been dispatched to Uttar Pradesh to uncover the nature of the explosives used.
In Varanasi, the blast occurred at the local court premises in the Cantonment area during the busy court hour. Over 2,000 people were present in the court premises when the bomb went off.
In Lucknow, the bomb appeared to be a crude device hidden in a bag of ‘khoya’, a milk product, and kept on a bicycle that was strategically left along a tree near the tin sheds under which hundreds of lawyers operate in their makeshift offices.
While officials were circumspect in ascribing a motive to the terror attack, lawyers in the city saw a link between some of their colleagues roughing up the three terrorists arrested last week for allegedly plotting to abduct Rahul Gandhi. They had confessed their affiliation with the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Sadeer Bhatia, Lucknow’s bar association president, said, “We have been demanding better security in court premises. We have been telling the police that people entering the court premises should be frisked properly but that is not done.”
The blame game continued outside the court as well.
Soon after the incident, Chief Minister Mayawati called a press conference and put the blame on central intelligence agencies for not tipping them off earlier.
“Central agencies did not give us any tip-off on the movement of these terrorists nor did they sound any alert. This reflects the total failure of the central intelligence agencies,” she said.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani agreed and said that it “prima facie shows intelligence failure”.
“This was not an isolated case of a blast going off in a market or a bus station. These blasts have been prepared over a period of time and shows there has been preparation,” he said.
Attempting to deflect some of the criticism, Home Minister Shivraj said in the Lok Sabha: “It looks as if antinational groups are widening their activities. We found more bombs after the explosions.”
In a written statement, Patil condemned the blasts and said the government would continue to fight terrorism in a resolute manner.
But for the victims of the latest terror attack to strike India, that is just so many words.