Explosions rock southern Indian city; at least 11 killed

At least two explosions rocked a crowded market-place in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Thursday killing at least 11 people and injuring 50, a senior government official said.   

Television channels said as many as 15 people may have been killed in the explosions.   

"We have been in touch with state government officials," R.K. Singh, the top bureaucrat in the federal interior ministry, told reporters in New Delhi. "Ten people were killed and 50 injured."   

The explosions come less than two weeks after India hanged a Kashmiri man for a militant attack on the country's parliament in 2001 that had sparked violent clashes.   

Witnesses told Reuters they heard at least two explosions in the area just after dusk but there could have been more.   

TV showed debris and body parts strewn on the street in the Dilsukh Nagar area of Hyderabad, a crowded neighborhood of cinema halls, shops, restaurants and a fruit and vegetable market.   

In July 2011, three near-simultaneous blasts ripped through India's financial capital, Mumbai. At least 20 people were killed and over 100 wounded in the blasts set off by Muslim militants, authorities said.   

Last year, four small explosions occurred in quick succession in a busy shopping area of the western Indian city of Pune.  


REUTERS