INDIA:NORMALLY TEEMING, the western Indian city of Surat, the world's diamond-cutting and polishing capital, resembled a ghost town yesterday following the recovery of 19 unexploded bombs along with two cars of explosives.
Fearful Surat residents stayed home, while shops, educational institutions and virtually all businesses in this port city of more than four million residents remained closed. Police discovered explosive devices in crowded places with frightening regularity.
One bomb was found inside a lorry in a crowded bazaar, another hanging from an electrical transformer, a third suspended from the window of a police station, and a fourth secreted high up in a tree.
Surat police commissioner RS Brar said the 19th bomb was discovered yesterday in one of the city's markets after which he ordered the closure of all cinemas, colleges, schools, malls and parks.
The recovery of unexploded ordnance in the city that processes over 80 per cent of the world's diamonds and where the British East India Company initially established its first trading station in the 17th century, came after 22 explosions tore through the nearby commercial centre of Ahmadabad over the weekend, killing 49 and injuring more than 160. Bombs were also detonated in two Ahemdabad hospitals where the injured were being brought, killing at least two doctors.
"The terrorists planting the bombs had not used timers like they did in Ahemdabad, but utilised integrated circuits instead," said forensic expert SM Darjee. Due to some fault in their mechanism the bombs did not explode, he declared.
Police officials said if they had exploded the devastation would have been unthinkable as they were packed with nails, ball-bearings and shards of glass. But security sources believe the aim was to ensure they were found, and ratchet up the already-tense atmosphere across Indian cities.
An obscure Islamic militant group, the "Indian Mujahideen", has claimed the Ahmadabad strikes, but the authorities believe this may be a ruse by one of a handful of better-known Islamic groups in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh. Security was tightened especially in capital New Delhi and in Mumbai and Madras.