By IANS,
Pune: A Sudanese student and an Indian business executive injured in the Pune bombing a week ago succumbed to their injuries Saturday, taking to 13 the death toll in the worst terror attack in the country since the Mumbai carnage.
Even as security agencies struggled to get solid leads into the bomb attack at the landmark German Bakery, 35 of the nearly 60 wounded people remained in hospitals. Three of them were in critical condition.
Pune Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh announced the deaths of Sudanese Suleiman Alfatah, a 21-year-old second year student of Wadia College, and Atul G. Anar, 30, a resident of Navi Mumbai who worked for the Reliance group in Pune.
The first to die Saturday was the Sudanese, who was among those who suffered multiple fractures and extensive burns in the Feb 13 bombing.
The Sudanese, who played for the college volleyball team, is the fourth foreign national to die in the deadly blast. A Nepali restaurant worker, an Iranian student and an Italian woman died Feb 13 itself.
Like all the dead and injured, Alfatah and Anar were in the popular German Bakery, in the leafy Koregaon area, when a powerful bomb concealed in a backpack went off with a deafening roar.
The devastating explosion destroyed the famed eatery, which was located close to the Osho ashram, the leading reason why Pune has become a hub for people from several countries.
A large number of foreigners also study in Pune’s educational institutions or work in the city’s foreign companies.
The police have struggled to find out who was responsible for the bombing, the worst terror strike in the country since 10 Pakistani terrorists sneaked into Mumbai by sea in November 2008 and went on a killing spree. That massacre, which lasted almost three days, left 166 Indians and foreigners dead and majorly soured relations between India and Pakistan.
Investigators believe two men carried the lethal backpack into German Bakery pretending to be customers and left it under a table. When a worker tried to open it after finding it abandoned, it exploded.
No group immediately claimed responsibility. But days later, a little known Pakistan group, Lashkar-e-Taiba Al Alami (LeT-international), called an Indian journalist in Islamabad and owned up to the attack.
Meanwhile, police have appealed to residents of Pune to stop wearing surgical masks and women to avoid the traditional scarves in the interests of security.
Surgical masks have become popular in Pune ever since swine flu broke out last year and claimed many lives in the city.
“We have appealed to people to stop wearing masks and women to avoid scarves,” Police Commissioner Singh said.
Although the bomb attack has not triggered a panic run from Pune, many foreigners have become cautious vis-a-vis places they visit and strangers they meet.