By IANS,
Jaipur : Curfew has been imposed in parts of Jaipur after serial bomb blasts rocked the city Tuesday evening killing 55 and injuring over 125 persons.
“The death toll in the incident had touched 55 till early in the morning. According to our information over 125 persons have suffered injuries in the blast”, G C Kataria, Rajasthan’s home minister, told IANS.
“As a precautionary measure we have decided to impose a curfew from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in parts of the city”, he said. “The death toll is likely to increase as some of the injured are in critical condition”, a doctor at the government run SMS Hospital said, not wanting to be named as he was officially not supposed to speak to the media.
Doctors said many of the victims had shrapnel injuries. The carefully choreographed blasts at six spots went off within a space of 15 minutes and occurred in the Chandpole, where a Hanuman temple that draws a large number of devotees is located, as well as at Manak Chowk, Badi Choupar, Chhoti Choupar, Sanganeri Gate and Johari Bazar areas that are home to mixed populations of Hindus and Muslims.
Police said one explosive was also defused by bomb disposal squad near the Hanuman temple. Preliminary investigations revealed that cycle ballbearings were used in the explosions to inflict shrapnel injuries on the victims. A clock timer was also found at one of the blast sites.
Blood was splattered at the scene of the blasts which tossed some of the victims several feet up and damaged the iron shutters of shops. “Such acts of terror will not be tolerated and the perpetrators will be brought to book,” Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said soon after the blasts.
Tuesday’s explosions were among the worst terror strikes in India after the Mumbai suburban train blasts in July 2006 that killed over 180 people.
Jaipur is at the centre of India’s famous Golden Triangle tourist circuit that draws thousands of foreign visitors every year. It was not immediately known whether any foreign or Indian tourist was a casualty in the explosions.
The medium intensity explosions, the first major terror attack since the serial blasts in Uttar Pradesh in November last year, threw life out of gear in Jaipur and prompted a nation-wide alert to be sounded. Anti-riot police were deployed in some of the crowded areas of the famous ‘pink city’ to thwart any possible retaliation or riots, and the entire walled city area where the blasts occurred was cordoned off.
The mangled remains of bicycles and cars splattered with bloodstains pockmarked several of the blast sites. There were a few hundred people at the Hanuman temple when the blast took place since it was a Tuesday, considered auspicious among Hindus