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| Sinister Saturday in Delhi Takes 25 Away | | Serial explosions rock Gaffar Market, Connaught Place, Greater Kailash; over 90 injured | | New Delhi | Sept 13
Many security experts had been dreading the culmination of what was being called the Indian Mujahideen's Operation B-A-D. After Bangalore and Ahmedabad, Delhi was feared to be the obvious next target. This was not just speculation but had been claimed by the Gujarat police and IB on the basis of their decoding of an intercepted call, made allegedly from Sabarmati jail in Gujarat to Pakistan, soon after the Ahmedabad blasts
But, after Independence Day passed off peacefully, there had been a lull, causing complacency. So the national capital was caught pretty much unawares when terror struck on September 13 evening, leaving 18 people dead and 70 injured in five serial blasts in a span of 45 minutes when terrorists targetted three crowded market areas in the heart of the New Delhi.
According to police 40 people were injured, while hospital sources said over 70 were admitted to various hospitals. The toll therefore could go up once the reports from various hospitals are tallied and confirmed. Many of the injured are said to be in serious condition.
In an uncanny coincidence, the two major blasts which rocked Delhi in the last three years and the recent blast in Ahmedabad took place on Saturday evenings. The serial blasts of October 29, 2005, was also incidentally a Saturday evening. The serial blasts in Ahmedabad also occurred on yet another Saturday evening this year -- it was July 26.
There is more such statistical coincidences for those inclined to follow such things. This is the second blast this year that has taken place on 13th day of a month. The earlier one took place on May 13 in Jaipur.
All bodies are kept at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital while over 70 injured were being treated at various hospitals including Lady Hardinge, Safdarjung, Jasaram and Gangaram, a senior police official said.
Police sources said the blasts took place at three places -- Karol Bagh, Connaught Place and Greater Kailash -- almost simultaneously at around 6:40 pm.
As has become routine for such terror blasts across India, Indian Mujahideen, believed to be a frontal organisation of banned SIMI, through a purported email, has once again claimed responsibility for the serial blasts. The mail has been traced to an Internet Protocol address in Mumbai, according to Additional Commissioner of Mumbai Police (ATS) Parambir Singh. Unconfirmed reports claim that it has been traced to the
The first explosion rocked Ghaffar market of Karol Bagh at 6.15 PM when it was bustling with Saturday evening shoppers for the foreign goods available in many of the shops there. The explosive was kept near a Maruti car and the impact of the blast was so severe that a three-wheeler autorickshaw was thrown up several feet in the air and got caught in the electrical wires.
The blasts at Ghaffar Market were followed within minutes by two blasts in Connaught Place area -- one at Barakhamba Road, near Gopal Das Bhavan and the other one at Central Park. A young boy, Rahul, 12, claiming to be an eye-witness is reported to have said that two men, clad in black kurta-pajama, planted something in a dustbin in Central Park which exploded later.
Around the same time, there were two blasts in Greater Kailash I in South Delhi, one of them near the popular Prince Paan Corner and the other one near Levi's Store Eight to ten shops were damaged in the explosion that took place at around 6:40 pm. The bomb was suspected to have been kept in a dustbin.
One live bomb was recovered from the historic India Gate area averting a possible tragedy. A second unexploded device was recovered from a dustbin at Regal cinema in Connaught place, as per Joint Commissioner of Police Ajay Kashyap.
While at least eight people were believed to have been killed in Karol Bagh, four or five deaths occurred in Connaught place. The explosives were planted in dustbins in Connaught place area while in Greater Kailash one was in dustbin and another on a bicycle.
Preliminary examination of the blast site said that low intensity ammonium nitrate tied to integrated circuit had been used in almost all the serial blasts in the national capital.
Two persons have been detained by the police for questioning in the Connaught Place area
These blasts come following the serial blasts in Jaipur in May in which 65 people were killed and the explosions in Ahmedabad in July that left 49 dead. There were serial blasts in Bangalore in which two people were killed, a day before Ahmedabad blasts. |
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