30 arrested after blasts kill at least 45 in India

Authorities scoured a western Indian city yesterday for those responsible for a series of bombings that killed at least 45 people, detaining 30 people as a little-known group claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the second series of blasts in India in two days.

"In the name of Allah the Indian Mujahedeen strike again! Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of death!" said an e-mail from the group. The message was sent to several Indian television stations minutes before the blasts began.

The e-mail's subject line said "Await 5 minutes for the revenge of Gujarat," an apparent reference to 2002 riots in the western state that left 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. The historic city of Ahmadabad is the capital of Gujarat and was the scene of much of the 2002 violence.

State government spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas said 45 people were killed and 161 wounded when at least 16 bombs went off on Saturday evening in several crowded neighborhoods. The attack came a day after seven smaller blasts killed two people in the southern technology hub of Bangalore.

Another unexploded bomb was found and defused early yesterday, the city's police commissioner, O.P. Mathur, said. He said police had detained 30 people in their investigation.

Investigators in Surat, a city about 255 km south of Ahmadabad, found a car carrying detonators and a liquid that police suspect may be ammonium nitrate, a chemical often used in explosive devices, said city police Chief R.M.S. Brar.

Cities around the country were put on alert and security was stepped up at markets, hospitals, airports and train stations.

The e-mail was sent by a group calling itself Indian Mujahedeen which was unknown before May, when it said it was behind a series of bombings in Jaipur, also in western India, that killed 61 people. Saturday's e-mail, sent from a Yahoo account and written in English, was made available by CNN-IBN, one of the TV stations that received the warning.

In its e-mail, the group did not mention the bombings in Bangalore and it was not clear if the attacks were connected.

Some TV stations reported yesterday that police in Mumbai, India's business hub, had traced the e-mail to an address in the city but officials denied this.

"An e-mail was received by many news organizations. We are inquiring into that. We haven't traced it yet," city police Chief A.N. Roy said.

The Saturday bombs went off in two separate areas. The first, near a busy market, left some of the dead sprawled beside stands piled high with fruit, next to twisted bicycles. The second group of blasts went off near a hospital.

The side of a bus was blown off and its windows shattered, while another vehicle was engulfed in flames. Most of the blasts took place in the narrow lanes of the older part of Ahmadabad, which is tightly packed with homes and small businesses. Bomb-sniffing dogs scoured the areas.

Distraught relatives of the victims crowded the city's hospitals. One of the wounded was a 6-year-old boy whose father was killed in the blasts. He lay in a hospital bed with his arms covered in bandages and wounds on his face.

Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat state where Ahmadabad is located, called the blasts "a crime against humanity."

Questions:

1. How many bombs went off in Ahmadabad on Saturday?

2. What little-known group was responsible for the attack?

3. Blasts killed two people in what other Indian city the day before the Ahmadabad bombs?

Answers:

1. 16.

2. Indian Mujahedeen.

3.Bangalore.