Hyderabad, New Delhi; August 25:At least 35 people were feared dead and nearly 60 injured after two explosions, barely minutes and five km of each other, ripped through an amusement park and a popular eat-out here this evening.

Preliminary police investigations have revealed that the blasts might have been caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) loaded with RDX. “It is definitely a terrorist activity,” said Andhra Chief Minister Y Rajasekhara Reddy.

While President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have condemned the attacks, Home Minister Shivraj Patil is scheduled to visit Hyderabad tomorrow.

The Centre is also rushing a team of senior officers to Hyderabad, including Special Secretary (Internal Security) M L Kumawat. “It appears to be the handiwork of terrorists,” Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta said.

The Home Ministry has been in touch with the state government and is monitoring the situation, said officials. A red alert has also been sounded across the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, neighbouring Karnataka and New Delhi.

This attack comes just three months after blasts in the city’s Mecca Masjid on May 18 in which 10 persons were killed and 40 injured. A senior police official said the explosives used in the twin blasts today were similar to the one used by terrorists in the Masjid blast. This has led some to allege involvement of the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami.

Today, the first blast was at around 8 pm inside an open-air amphitheatre at Lumbini Park, near the state Secretariat in the heart of the city. It tore through the middle rows from 8-11 during a “laser show”, leaving nearly 10 killed. Late evening rains ensured that the entertainment park, at least, was less crowded — the usual weekend count here is around 1,500 visitors.

The second explosion, at the crowded Gokul Chat, in the Koti market area, left nearly 25 dead. Such was the intensity of the blasts that many bodies were blown to bits, while others were mangled beyond recognition.

“We heard the blast and people started running out past us. Many of them had blood streaming off them,” said P K Verghese, security manager at the laser show. “It was complete chaos. We had to remove the security barriers so people could get out.”

Heart-rending scenes were witnessed at Osmania hospital here, where the dead and injured were brought, with wailing relatives thronging the premises. “I am looking for my niece who went to buy some books at a bookshop in Koti, overlooking Gokul Chat,” said a relative of Pratyusha, a young student who could not be traced till late tonight.

Police later recovered two unexploded bombs from a cinema hall in the busy Dilsukhnagar area and another from Narayanaguda. A bomb threat was received by an IMAX hall near Lumbini Park.

Cops rewind to Mecca Masjid blast, but that probe going nowhere

Date: May 18, 2007

A bomb explodes in the open-air courtyard at the historical Mecca Masjid mosque as Friday prayers are concluding. Bomb squad defuses a second bomb.

Main accused

Fingers point to Shahid Bilal alias Abdul Rehman, 24, a former Hyderabad resident linked to terror groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Harkat-ul-Jehadi, an explosives expert with a history in Hyderabad

The Status of investigation

May 21: NSG reports similarities with the Malegaon blasts on Sept 8, 2006

May 22: SIM card in failed bomb's mobile phone timer traced to a shop in Jharkhand, bought using the ID of Babulal Yadav. But Yadav is unaware of purchase

May 23: Police turn to narcoanalysis of Sameer Sheikh, an alleged LeT operative, who claims to have transported men from Bangladesh to Hyderabad

May 25: Hyderabad police arrest Shoaib Jagirdar, a 52-year-old butcher from Jalna in Maharashtra. Police say he visited Hyderabad with Sheikh

June 7: Sheikh taken into custody by the Hyderabad police, the only one formally arrested for the blasts

June 15: Abdul Sattar, 27, a mechanic is arrested by the Hyderabad police

July 26: CBI issues lookout for two persons believed to have bought the SIM cards; a Noida yoga teacher claims his photo used

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