Terror struck the highly revered Sufi shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti here when a bomb went off inside the complex this evening killing two persons and injuring at least 28 as thousands were breaking their day-long Ramzan fast just two days before Eid, a day before Friday prayers.

The site of the blast — that occurred at 6.20 pm — was the Aahetai-e-Noor, right opposite the dargah’s main shrine and the target was visitors and pilgrims from across the nation. There was no damage to the shrine.

Of the 14 critically injured, only three are local residents while the rest are from states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The dead were identified as Mohammad Shoaib from Mumbai and Salim from Hyderabad.

“For years, my husband had been thinking of coming to the dargah to offer Ramzan prayers but it was only this year that we could make it. And now he is dead,” said Tajunisa Mohammad, wife of Shoaib. With tears in her eyes and all alone, she refuses to leave the bedside of her eight-year-old nephew Arshad, who had come with them to Ajmer. Arshad, too, is injured and Tajunisa is now waiting for his father to come from Mumbai.

Eyewitnesses said that just when the pilgrims had broken their fast and had begun eating, a deafening sound was followed by a cloud of dust. “I did not even realise what had happened. All I know is the sound of the blast and suddenly acute pain on the right side of my face and hand. Before I could get over the shock, I realised I was bleeding profoundly,” said 22-year-old Aasif Majid, from Anand in Gujarat. An engineering student in Bhuj, Aasif was attending the iftar with two of his friends who are also injured and admitted to the local Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital.

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