Indian leaders appeal for calm after attacks leave 45 dead
AHMEDABAD —
The death toll from a string of coordinated bomb attacks in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad has risen to 45, the Press Trust of India news agency said Sunday.
Earlier, the toll stood at 38 after police spokesman and medical officials said nine people had died of their injuries overnight.
Around 162 others are still being treated for injuries, PTI reported.
Indian leaders issued appeals for calm Sunday after the string of 16 bombings ripped through crowded places in the tinderbox city, which was the scene of deadly Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002, with targets including markets, buses and hospitals struggling to treat the victims.
Indian television channels said a little-known Islamist group calling itself the “Indian Mujahedeen” had claimed responsibility for the attacks , which came a day after a similar wave of bombings in the southern tech city of Bangalore.
Indian President Pratibha Patil expressed her “grief and sorrow” and also “appealed to the people of Ahmedabad to maintain peace and harmony,” her office said in a statement.
Many of the victims had been peppered with red-hot nuts, bolts and ball bearings packed into bombs that were clearly designed to cause maximum casualties, doctors said.
At Ahmedabad’s civil hospital, one of two medical facilities that were hit, victims could be seen writhing on the floor, their bodies punctured by flying pellets, and crying for treatment from overstretched and panicked staff.
All the bombs were detonated with timer devices and all went off in the space of 36 minutes, officials said.
“We should not allow anybody to make use of this blast to create more terror and to create more difficulties for the people,” said India’s Home Minister Shivraj Patil, also urging calm in the communally-tense state.
Gujarat’s right-wing Hindu leader Narendra Modi, however, warned he “shall not spare” the culprits.
“The land of Mahatma Gandhi has been bloodied by terrorists whom we shall not spare,” said Modi, the firebrand chief minister of Gujarat state—the birthplace of India’s independence hero.
“Terrorists are waging a war against India. We should be prepared for a long battle against terrorism.”
State leader Modi is a highly controversial figure in India—and is still accused of turning a blind eye to the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots which left 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.
Ahmedabad, however, was largely calm on Sunday morning, with large numbers of police and paramilitaries mobilised.
Major Indian cities have been hit by a string of apparently well-planned bomb attacks in recent years, with officials in the capital regularly pointing the finger at arch-rival Pakistan or militants backed by Islamabad.
Pakistan denies backing Muslim militants, including those operating in the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir.
But earlier in the week India said the two countries’ peace process was “under stress,” repeating allegations that “elements” in Islamabad were behind an upsurge in militant activities including this month’s suicide attack against its Kabul embassy.
Wire reports
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22 Comments
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rajakumar
Not good.
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nandakandamanda
The photos of the ripped-open bus look very similar to the state of the buses in Yunnan, China the other day.
It feels like the same broad movement is behind both sets of attacks. Someone wants to stir things up and cause an angry backlash so that they can show evidence of oppression and thus gain support for new propagation. These people have devoted time and thought to creating viable timed exlosive devices.
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rajakumar
Not good, unnecessary deaths in India.
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nandakandamanda
Not good for most good people, rajakumar. And especially in India right now.
But this IS good for a small minority with a vicious agenda, killing people discriminately (the more outrageous and horrifying the better) in the belief that it will achieve a better world in the future for the unquestioning believers.
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WilliB
The religion of peace in India. When will the civilized world wake up to the danger from islam?
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rajakumar
WilliB- Dangers in india,is not faiths but ignorance of groups of people about faith. In fact many say sufism in islam came from india.
I believe ignorance of people, is everywhere on the planet. Even in EU, like problems in old yugoslavia.
Other dangers also adding to woes to india.
This are also fairness,education,unemployment,economic injustice, facilities equality, too much escapism movie addicts and weak governance problems among, indian citizens.
If all grassroots problems tackled in stages,for all millions of indian citizens, there will be no space for rebels and their agendas.
Majority of indian millions of people are very gentle and peaceful in land of india. There world is full of problems, india also has its share of woes after independance, even there were problems before independance. They the people of India ,could benefit a lot,if they can get educations agendas going up perfectly, to remove ignorance.
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nandakandamanda
rajakumar I like what you said above: "The danger in India is not different faiths but ignorance of groups of people about faith."
Yes, and some people use this ignorance to their selfish and despicable advantage, in the name of faith. This leads to death and unimaginable suffering. Disgusting.
Can the people remain calm in the face of every insult? This is the big question. I certainly hope they can.
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some14some
wire reports 'weird' about Chief minister of Narendra Modi
Perhaps in Western Media not in india, he has been elected 3 times (each term 5 years) with landslide victory also he has helped restore BJP govt in more than three Indian Satates.
rightly so, terrorists must not be spared. His stand is no different than the USA.
Having said that, the communal riots must be avoided and terrorists must be captured or killed at any cost.
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some14some
ooppss...chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi... sorry
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rajakumar
nandakandamanda- Ignorance is the problem nanda, we may can help others out ignorance with knowledge, but we can't stop ignorance of spiritual desert . Using other ignorance to their advantage, is ignorance.
Blind leading the blind.
The thing people in india,must take lessons/read on their own,as to how to come out of blindness/ignorance. Mystics and others false blind leaders, are cheating people,because they are ignorant enough to be cheated.
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rajakumar
Corrections- Using other's ignorance to their advantage ,by false leaders, is ignorance. Blind leading the blind.
The thing people in india, must do, is take lessons /read/ on their own, as to how to come out blindness/ignorance. Mystics and other false blind leaders are cheating people, because they, the people, are ignorant enough, to be cheated.
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adaydream
This really sucks to peace loving Indians. < :-)
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adaydream
I was just thinking about my country and the terrorist that I know would take us out.
I have been critical of the CIA and other security agencies, for specific areas, but I'm very proud of the efforts and results they we have in protecting us from bad guys.
I know of a few times we have been saved, because they have made the media. Buy I'm also aware that there are also times we have been saved from attack, that we just aren't told about.
I hope India finds out who did this and protects itself from future attacks. < :-)
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WilliB
Rajakumar:
No, my friend. These are not some random buddhists, or hindus, or new-agers who are committing terrorism. These are muslim radicals, acting on the word of their holy book. Read the sura 9 of the koran to get an idea.
NB: The "Indian Mujaheddin" movement has already announced more terrorism to come.
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Helter_Skelter
From the article: 16 bombs go off in crowded places; targets including markets, buses and hospitals struggling to treat the victims; 45 dead and 162 wounded; victims had been peppered with red-hot nuts, bolts and ball bearings packed into bombs; Islamist group calling itself the “Indian Mujahedeen” had claimed responsibility for the attacks.
And the best the President of India can come up with is to express her “grief and sorrow” and to maintain peace and harmony? Pathetic. Passive resistance may have worked against the British, but it ain't gonna work against Jihadists. The Indian government does nothing about Islamic terrorism and its citizens suffer. Sounds like they're going to continue to this tradition.
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rajakumar
Attack Leaves 45 dead
WillieB-Following faith blindly/wrongly affect the ignorant people a lot and false leaders misuse intelligence to make their followers bomb/kill.
The modern civilisation in India has many defects, in spiritualty. India still remains a polished cats/dogs civilisation of a lot of illiterate citizens.
Indian people real intelligence also has been taken away. Blind fools following the blind leaders to bomb/kill is normal in india ,for decades now.
Educated people now want to be killers with killer bombs.This is the great discovery of educated blind false leaders.
Misuse/abuse of intelligence and blindness also in India. Indians are theists and are believers of god like other theists.
Servant of god like nations is good desire. It is desire of many nations.
But actually getting there as a nation may be most difficult thing to accomplish in India.
Only hope in today's world is a nation built with well read/educated/dialogues involved, citizens.
This is the way for citizens to come out of blindness of following the blind.
Citizens must clever enough not to duped into misuse/abuse of their intelligence. They must clever enough, not to be duped into pitfalls of ignorant false leaderships of false leaders.
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WilliB
rajakumar:
Yes. But it is only the muslim faith that commands terror and murder against the unbelievers. Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Bahais, Jain, Jews (continue at will) do not go to heaven for committing mass murder.
So, yes, you can claim they are misunderstanders of the religion of peace, but it is only one religion that produces all these misunderstanders.
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nandakandamanda
WilliB, this may be true, but for India today there are Hindus just waiting for any opportunity to attack mostly innocent Muslim communities. It has happened again and again. Did you see the film/movie Gandhi? Once they attack, the Muslim communities have to defend themselves. Horrible things start to happen. The BIG PROBLEM is how to calm everyone down, put a stop to the tit-for-tat riots and maintain a mutli-ethnic society. There are small cells on both sides, Hindus and Muslims, who are not above killing their own people in order to create a pretext for starting the ethnic cleansing again. Many Hindus would like to kick the remaining Muslims out of India. Some Muslim leaders are just waiting for such a thing to happen so they can make more DVDs proving that Muslims are discriminated against all over the world, and recruit more young impressionable 'fighters' or suicide bombers.
This is why the leaders of India are appealing for calm now and the use of reason over emotion.
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rajakumar
Nandakandamanda- I agree with your arguments. This what we call the cycle of violence in india. Young suicide fighters are now easily recruited via DVDs showing them things that make them become fighters.
Maintaining multi ethnic and multi faiths peace in India, is not easy. The leaders themselves also are to blame for not being pro-active to these kind of conditions/situations. Surely india must know it is not immune to its multifaith problems and challenges.
Manmohan Singh government needs to upgrade and enhance its pro active measures to bring better harmony among multifaiths people of India and also among disgrunted marginised rebelling angry people in India.
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WilliB
nandakanda:
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Yes, Hindus have responded to muslim violence, but politically correct films like "Ghandi" end our media tend to blank out the muslim violence and present Hindu violence in isolation.
Fact is there is no counterpart to the muslim terrorism that India is subjected to to today. And Hindus have a track record for integrating and living peacefully with other communities; that is not something you can say of islam. There is nothing in Hinduism that divides the world into "the house of Hinduism" and "the house of War" and teaches to hate and fight the unbelievers until the whole world is subjected to Hindu holy law.
rajakumar:
Spare your Taqqiva.
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