India hunts for 3 suspected bombers
Indian authorities circulated sketches yesterday of three suspects believed to be behind a series of blasts outside courts in three cities that left at least 13 dead and more than 40 wounded.
Police said the blasts in northern Uttar Pradesh state on Friday afternoon were targeting lawyers.
They are questioning a cyber cafe owner in connection with a threatening e-mail sent just before the blasts, media reports said.
"Now the Islamic raides (sic) which is going to take place against lawyer within minutes," said the message received by some television news channels, the Indian Express daily reported on Saturday.
The e-mail accuses lawyers in the state of beating up people falsely accused by the police of terrorism, adding the advocates "refused to take their cases and didn't allow others to take their cases."
The attacks came a week after the Uttar Pradesh bar council unanimously decided not to defend Islamist militants facing charges in the state.
The e-mail also said Indian police would be targeted next, the Express said.
Uttar Pradesh home secretary official Javed Ahmed told AFP on Saturday sketches of three suspects had been released but would not comment further on the investigation.
"This a terrorist attack on the advocates of our state," additional director-general of police Brij Lal said by telephone from Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow earlier.
In the holy Hindu city of Varanasi, where nine people including three lawyers died Friday, the state police chief said the blasts were similar to other recent explosions in the state.
"We will identify and zero in on the local modules of terror outfits," said Vikram Singh, the Times of India reported.
Four people were also killed in the city of Faizabad, near Ayodhya, a hotbed of Hindu-Muslim rivalry where Hindus tore down a 16th-century mosque in 1992 sparking nationwide riots that left 2,000 died.
Singh said earlier the bombs were transported to the courthouses of Varanasi -- where a string of powerful explosions killed 23 people in March 2006 -- Faizabad and Lucknow by bicycles, which were then abandoned.
"The fact that three blasts took place at the same time... it is clear that it is a conspiracy," India's junior home minister Sriprakash Jaiswal told reporters in India's capital New Delhi.
Comments