At least six people were killed and 62 injured in two separate blasts yesterday in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi in northern India, officials said.
Television reports said up to 12 may have died.
"All entry points to the area have been sealed," said V.N. Rai, inspector-general of police in Uttar Pradesh state.
One explosion was reported in a packed Hindu temple and another occurred in a railway station in Varanasi city, a federal interior ministry official said.
Private TV channel NDTV said 12 people were feared killed in the blasts but officials said they could not confirm the report.
Temple-studded Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh state, is one of the holiest cities for India's majority Hindu population.
The blast at the Sankat Mochan temple could have "several casualties as it is usually packed with thousands of devotees" on Tuesday, a holy day for Hindus, the official said.
"There are some casualties," Yashpal Singh, the state's police chief, told the Star News TV channel. "The position is not clear because there is a lot of crowd there. Security has been increased in the city."
As news of the explosions spread, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for calm, said his spokesman, Sanjaya Baru. He did not say what caused the blasts.
"The blast appears to have happened on board the Shivganga Express," police inspector Mohammed Hashmi said.
Police also found two primed bombs near a restaurant at Varanasi's main cremation site on the banks of the Ganges river, Hashmi said, as police evacuated the temple and closed off the areas.
"Both the bombs were lying outside the restaurants and they were live," he said.
The explosions came days after Muslims and Hindus battled each other in the nearby city of Lucknow, and angry Hindus looted Muslim shops and burned vehicles in the coastal resort of Goa.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS