Thu, Mar 09, 2006 page5

• Security forces deployed in India

  UNWELCOME Soldiers and police were sent to guard religious sites following bombings at a crowded railway station and temple in Varanasi

  • AP
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  Security forces deployed to holy sites across India yesterday after terror bombings killed 20 people in Hinduism's holiest city, sparking anger among its residents and concerns of possible widespread sectarian violence.

  A mob of angry Hindus briefly blocked the motorcade of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh State, when he visited the scene of the Tuesday bombings at a crowded railway station and temple in the northern city of Varanasi on the holy Ganges River.

  Yadav, whose party champions the cause of Muslims and lower-caste Hindus, inspected the site yesterday under heavy protection while slogans against him rang around him.

  

  A policeman stands guard yesterday at the Sankat Mochan temple, the site of a bomb explosion in Varanasi, India.

  PHOTO: AP

  Varanasi

  Varanasi, meanwhile, was largely shut down by a strike called by Hindu nationalist groups to protest the bombings. Markets were closed and vehicles kept off the roads. Authorities also ordered that schools be closed because of the strike call.

  But there was no sign of wider violence in reaction to the attack.

  "There is peace now but what happened yesterday is horrible," said Jugal Kishore Chaurasiya, a local grocer. "There is fear but I am proud that even after this act of terrorism there has been amity between the two sides. We are trying to maintain peace."

  Cities across India were on high alert after the bombings, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for calm.

  "It is a terrorist attack. It has all the characteristics of a terrorist attack," said Principal Secretary Alok Sinha, the state's top home ministry official. "We are not sure about the group involved. The [anti-terrorist] Special Task Force has started investigations into the matter."

  Soldiers and police were sent to guard prominent religious pilgrimage spots across this country of 1.02 billion people, which is about 84 percent Hindu but which also has a sizable Muslim minority and millions of followers of many other religions.

  Five people died overnight in hospitals, adding to the 15 people killed on Tuesday evening in the series of coordinated bombings in the northern city on the banks of the holy Ganges River in Uttar Pradesh State, local Superintendent of Police Paresh Pandey said.

  Pandey said 58 people were still being treated in different hospitals, 35 of them in serious condition.

  Yadav said "stern action will be initiated against all those found involved."

  Street battles

  The attacks came only days after Hindus and Muslims fought street battles in two neighborhoods in Lucknow, leaving four people dead, during a visit to India by US President George W. Bush. The next day, angry Hindus looted Muslim shops and burned vehicles in the coastal resort of Goa in a dispute over a mosque demolition.

  At least two blasts went off on Tuesday evening at Varanasi's train station, and another blast shook a temple on the banks of the Ganges, where millions of pilgrims gather annually for ritual bathing and prayers. Police said they found other, unexploded bombs elsewhere in the city.

  Yashpal Singh, the Uttar Pradesh police chief, said the attackers had targeted the temple on a Tuesday, when special prayers are held, to cause maximum damage.

  "The bomb was placed near a tree where women usually sit and take rest," Singh said. "Moreover, a wedding was just over when the blast took place. Had the blast taken place a few minutes earlier, the toll could have been more."

  "Similarly, in the railway station the bomb was placed near the station master's office to cause maximum damage," he said.

  Britain condemned the attack.

  "I was horrified to hear of today's bombings in Varanasi," British Foreign Office minister Kim Howells said in a statement. The attack "follows a series of other terrorist atrocities in India. It demonstrates once more the evil that the world continues to face. We remain determined to work closely alongside India in its fight against this evil."
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