Delhi, India - Indian police today shot dead an Islamic militant suspected of links to a triple bombing which is now believed to have killed 28 people in Hinduism’s holy city of Varanasi.
Counter-terrorism officers shot the wanted man a few hours after the blasts, which went off in a crowded temple and at a railway station yesterday evening in the famed temple town on the banks of the sacred Ganges river.
The bombs also wounded 68 people, and raised fears of a backlash by India's majority Hindu population. The authorities said that they suspected "terrorists", an official phrase used to refer to Islamic extremists, were behind the carnage.
Police said that they found that the suspect was carrying a pistol and 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) of explosives after he was shot on the outskirts of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, 300 km (190 miles) north of Varanasi.
"Probably he was involved in the Varanasi blasts," said Rajesh Pandey, a police superintendent in Lucknow where the shooting happened.
Named as Salar, the man was believed to be a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant group which is fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. He had been on police 'wanted' lists for several years.
"He has been quite active and is an expert in making bombs, improvised explosive devices and other things," deputy superintendent M.S. Tiku told India’s IBN-CNN news channel. Police had tracked Salar from Kashmir where he also operated, Tiku added.
No group claimed responsibility for the bombings, which came a week before Holi, Hinduism’s festival of colour.
The first of the blasts tore into the Sankat Mochan temple dedicated to the monkey god Hanuman - one of Varanasi’s oldest as well as one of the most beloved shrines - when it was packed with faithful.
"There were four marriages being performed on the platform outside the sanctum sanctorum when the bomb went off, killing a number of brides and grooms," the temple’s chief priest Kaushal Vir Bhadhra Mishra told Agence France Presse news agency. "One of the couples had come from Nepal to marry in what they said before the blast was the paradise of Hinduism."
Television footage of the Sankat Mochan temple showed its white marble walls and floors stained with blood. Shoes of the dead and injured devotees were strewn on the ground among scattered offerings of leaves and sweets. Shards of bloodied glass littered the ground outside.
Rescue workers struggled to move the injured to safety through the narrow and cobbled lanes where the temple is located. Footage showed bleeding survivors being carried away on blankets. An old woman lay on the floor, holding up her arms to helpers, who pulled her away.
L.N. Singh, a forensics expert at the scene, said that the explosive device was probably hidden in a pressure cooker. "The bomb appears to have been smuggled inside the complex concealed in a pressure cooker just like it was done in Delhi on October 29. We are trying to find the link between the serial bombing in the two cities."
Triple blasts blamed on Kashmiri Muslim separatists struck the Indian capital last October just before the Hindu festival of Diwali, killing 66 people. A bomb at a crowded market place had been hidden in a pressure cooker.
Today Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, appealed for calm as a security clampdown was imposed across the country. Armed police and sniffer dogs were guarding key installations and holy sites across Uttar Pradesh state.
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 yesterday's bombings.
Yadav, whose party champions the cause of Muslims and lower-caste Hindus, inspected the site this morning under heavy protection while slogans against him rang around him.
Varanasi, meanwhile, was largely shut down today by a strike called by Hindu nationalist groups in protest at the bombings. Markets were closed and vehicles kept off the roads. Authorities also ordered that schools be closed because of the strike call.
Shivraj Patil, the Home Minister, said that the federal government had put all states on alert and sealed off Varanasi. "The temple was targeted understandably to cause communal tension in the country," Patil said in a statement in parliament in New Delhi.
"All of us have to ensure that such acts of terror by some desperate anti-national elements do not disturb peace, public order and communal harmony in the country and would not be allowed to undermine our determination to combat, control and contain violence."
Varanasi police said they were determined to prevent any backlash. "We are conducting raids across the city for suspects of yesterday’s bombings. We are on the alert for communal tensions but so far the situation is under control," said Navneet Sikera, a chief of police.
After an earlier terror attack in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid complex in Ayodhya in July 2005, the Indian government allocated 167 million rupees for improving security and installing high-tech surveillance equipment at important shrines and monuments. But the Sankat Mochan temple was not in the protected list, authorities said.
Britain condemned the attack. "I was horrified to hear of today's bombings in Varanasi," said Kim Howells, a Foreign Office minister, 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."