Hyderabad: A man in Hyderabad has been detained in connection with yesterday's twin blasts which killed 16 people and 117 injured in the busy neighbourhood of Dilsukhnagar.
A little over 12 hours after two bombs exploded in Hyderabad's crowded
Dilsukhnagar yesterday, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde visited the
site this morning and also hospitals where the injured are admitted.
Among the dead are two
MBA students and a young man who had appeared for a police exam. Many of
the injured are also students and other young people.
(See pictures)The
Andhra Pradesh government has set up two special teams which will
conduct an independent inquiry to assist the National Investigation
Agency now handling the case. The police are attempting to make sketches
of possible suspects, work hampered by the fact that both the CCTV
cameras near the blast sites were not working. There are reports that
the wires of these cameras had been found severed a few days ago but had
not been fixed.
(Read)NDTV
has accessed details of a terror alert sent by the Centre two days
before blasts. That had warned of possible attacks in Hyderabad among
other cities. The alert also mentioned Bangalore, Hubli and Coimbatore
as possible targets. The alert also talked about possible revival of
Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar modules.
The site of the blasts
had been sanitised by this morning, and policemen in plainclothes are
now looking for evidence and questioning eyewitnesses. But it took the
police hours last evening to clear the hundreds of people - some
curious, others angry - who crowded the congested lanes after the
explosions, which happened in quick succession a little after 7 pm,
about 100 metres apart. People milled around debris and even the
bicycles on which the improvised explosive devices or IEDs had been
placed, amid fears that important evidence could be lost.
The
blasts took place near a small restaurant, close to two cinemas and a
bus stand. Dilsukhnagar also houses a college and is near a fruit and
vegetable market and the area was bustling with office-goers, students
and heavy traffic when the explosions occurred. Andhra Pradesh's police
chief V Dinesh Reddy said these were "acts of terror and were aimed at
causing maximum damage."
Hyderabad police sources said this
morning that the second bomb had been placed at exactly the same spot
that an unexploded bomb was found during the Hyderabad twin blasts of
2007. The sources said the police had intelligence inputs last year of
busy marketplaces like Dilsukhnagar, Begum Pet and Abid's being recced
for possible terror attacks, but had found it difficult to sanitise the
crowded areas.
(Read: Large crowd could hamper probe)
Mr
Shinde refused to answer questions on investigations saying they were
at too preliminary a stage and also that he could not speak much in
Hyderabad with Parliament in session. He did however reiterate that
intelligence alerts about a possible terror attack had been received and
were shared with state governments over the last 48 hours, emphasizing
again that there was no information specific to Hyderabad.
(Read: Intelligence had prior alerts, but no specific details: Shinde) "We will leave no stone unturned," the Home Minister promised.
