| Hyd twin blasts: 42 killed, 50 injured |
| Press Trust of India / Hyderabad August 26, 2007 |
| At least 42 people, including five women and seven students, have been killed and 50 injured in two explosions at a crowded park and a popular eatery in Hyderabad last evening, three months after the Mecca Masjid blasts, police said today. A week-end outing at the popular Gokul Chat shop at Kothi locality turned into a tragedy when a deafening explosion ripped through it killing 32 people and wounding 21, they said. Five minutes earlier, 10 people, most of them from outside the state, were killed and 29 injured in another blast in an open air auditorium in Lumbini Park near the state secretariat in the heart of the city when a laser show was underway, they said. The blast at the auditorium, where 500 people were present, was so powerful that some bodies were flung in the air. Among the dead at the Lumbini Park were two students from Ahmedabad. Four Railway employees are among those killed in the blasts. The condition of some of the injured is serious, police said. Updated at 2300 hrs on 25 August: In a major terror strike, at least 30 people were killed and about 60 injured in two powerful near-simultaneous blasts at a crowded park and a popular eating joint here this evening. Twenty-four people died when an explosion ripped through Gokul Chat Shop at Kothi locality at around 7.50 pm, Andhra Pradesh Home Minister K Jana Reddy told reporters here. In another blast five minutes earlier at a place 5 km away, six people were killed in an auditorium in Lumbini Park near the state secretariat in the heart of the city, when a laser show was on, he said. Reddy said about 500 people were in the auditorium at the time of the incident. The blast ripped through the middle row of the auditorium when the show had just begun. So powerful was the blast that some of the bodies were flung into the air and scattered over the area. Confirming the number of deaths as based on preliminary information, Reddy termed the blasts the handiwork of terrorists. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Balwinder Singh said the toll at Lumbini Park, overlooking the Hussain Sagar lake, may go up as it was teeming with week-end crowd. Reddy said that |
