At Least Four Killed In Indian Mosque Bomb Blast

[A.Rahman]

HYDERABAD, India, May 18 (AFP) - A bomb tore through Hyderabad's historic Mecca Masjid, one of India's biggest mosques, Friday, killing at least four people and wounding 24 others as thousands of worshippers attended prayers, doctors and witnesses said. The bomb is thought to have been placed inside a water tank. The NDTV news channel quoted officials as saying that two other bombs were successfully defused by bomb disposal teams. Hundreds of people gathered at the scene, and police were seen firing tear gas at an angry mob throwing stones at officers. (First Posted @ 14:11 PST Updated @ 16:18 PST)

http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/18/welcome.htm

 

[Bull]

And the worst was the police firing killed two more as protestors started burning shops and attacking policemen.

Bomb a temple, call for relegious harmony arises.
Bomb a train, call for candle light vigil arises.
Bomb a mosque, call to burn the shops and attack the police arises.

Atlast the detractors have found where to bomb to cause maximum unrest.

Unless you have some quotes from people calling for violence. I suggest you try flame baiting somewhere else. Keysersoze

Here's a little sign of the other side from Neo's article

"India's worst religious violence in recent years was in 2002, in the western Gujarat state. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslim, were killed by Hindu mobs in revenge attacks after a train fire killed 60 Hindus returning from a religious pilgrimage. Muslims were blamed for the train fire."


Wonder where the police were then?

 

[Adux]

Very very true!!!!!!!

 

[Neo]

Sad news, Southern India is known for its tollerance and religious freedom.
R.I.P.

 

[Neo]

Death toll risen to 13...

13 die in explosion, clashes in India
By OMER FAROOQ, Associated Press Writer
34 minutes ago

View attachment 3d6e2453e89587a4bcc3a693cdf0b213.jpg
HYDERABAD, India - A bomb ripped through a historic mosque Friday in south India, and 13 people were killed — 11 in the blast and two in subsequent clashes between angry Muslim worshippers and security forces, police said.

Minutes after the blast at the 17th century Mecca Masjid, worshippers who were angered by what they said was a lack of police protection began chanting "God is great!" Some hurled stones at police, who dispersed them with baton charges and tear gas.

While the situation at the mosque was quickly brought under control, Muslims later clashed with security forces in at least three parts of Hyderabad, said Mohammed Abdul Basit, police chief of Andhra Pradesh state, where Hyderabad is located.

Police fired live ammunition and tear gas to quell the riots, killing two people, he said.

The bombing, which killed 11 people and wounded 35, and clashes raised fears of wider Hindu-Muslim violence in the city, long been plagued by communal tensions — and occasional spasms of inter-religious bloodletting.

Authorities across India were told to be alert for any signs of Hindu-Muslim fighting, and top officials called for calm.

Many of the 35 people wounded were seriously hurt, and the city's police chief, Balwinder Singh, warned the death toll could rise.

Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state, appealed for calm between Hindus and Muslims. He called the bombing an act of "intentional sabotage on the peace and tranquility in the country."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh echoed those sentiments in a statement released later.

"The prime minister has condemned the bomb blast in Hyderabad and has urged members of all communities to maintain peace and communal harmony," his media adviser, Sanjaya Baru, said in the statement.

Reddy told reporters in New Delhi, where he was meeting with federal officials on unrelated business, that one bomb went off around 1:30 p.m. and that police found and defused two other bombs soon after.

About 10,000 people usually attend Friday prayers at the mosque, which is located in a Muslim neighborhood of Hyderabad, and the blast sparked a panic.

"As soon as prayers ended, we were about to get up, there was a huge deafening blast sending bodies into the air," said Abdul Quader, 30, whose legs were slightly injured. "People stated running helter-skelter, there was such confusion. People were bleeding, running around in a very bad condition."

The explosion immediately drew comparisons to a Sept. 8 bombing of a mosque during a Muslim festival in Malegaon, a city in western India, that killed 31 people.

There are an estimated 130 million Muslims in India, a country of 1.1 billion people.

India's worst religious violence in recent years was in 2002, in the western Gujarat state. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslim, were killed by Hindu mobs in revenge attacks after a train fire killed 60 Hindus returning from a religious pilgrimage. Muslims were blamed for the train fire.

A series of terrorist bombings have hit India in the past year, including the July bombings of seven Mumbai commuter trains that killed more than 200 people. Most of the bombings have been blamed on Muslim militants based in neighboring Pakistan, India's longtime rival.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070518...e_explosion;_ylt=Akn8h1CH.qtjyGe_7dLIbVms0NUE

 

[Adux]

Andhra Police Chief is a Muslim....I am waiting for more conspiracy theories

 

[centaurzhere.abdul]

Well, Iam from Hyderabad itself.

Things had gone Ugly for a while but now the Situations is looking better then it was.

Condolonce to the Dear Ones. May soil rest in peace

 

[Bushroda]

Religious Unrest in India
Friday, May. 18, 2007 By SIMON ROBINSON/NEW DELHI

While India's image makers may want the world to believe that business is the country's new religion, for many here there are older faiths — and faith-driven feuds — that matter more. At least five people were killed Friday in the southern city of Hyderabad, when a bomb exploded in a mosque crowded with worshipers attending Friday prayers. Police say they found and defused two other bombs close by. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The timing of the bombing may be linked to the sentencing Friday of 100 people convicted of playing a role in a series of deadly blasts in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), in 1993. Those attacks, which killed 257 people, were carried out by the Muslim-dominated Mumbai underworld to avenge earlier religious riots that had left 2,000 people dead. But the authors and motive of Friday's mosque bombing could remain a mystery. Months after last year's bomb attacks that killed more than 35 people near a mosque in the western state of Maharashtra, there are still no suspects beyond vague police suggestions.

Elsewhere, across the north of the country, rival Sikh groups clashed for the fourth straight day after the leader of one sect dressed, for a newspaper advertisement, in a fashion similar to the much adored 17th century Sikh figure Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh guru. Enraged Sikhs from other sects attacked properties belonging to the Dera Sacha Sauda, whose leader Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had committed the perceived religious insult. The clashes have killed two people and injured at least 30, and the national government has sent in troops to stop further unrest. "The sect chief has committed a grave offense by trying to imitate Guru Gobind Singh," said Sikh writer Kharak Singh. "He must issue an unconditional apology. A stubborn attitude will precipitate matters."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who happened to be opening a conference on interfaith harmony Friday, said that there is no place for religious intolerance in India. "Any political formation trying to incite people in the name of religion, whatever religion, is in fact betraying both religion and our constitution," the Prime Minister said. All nations, "big and small will have to come to terms with their growing internal diversity. No modern and open society can be a monolith."

So why the recurring religious unrest in India? Moderate Muslim activist J.S. Bandukwala says that "to a great extent" India has resolved the question of religious identity which had split the country for decades. "But in such a huge population it's so easy for someone to plant a bomb and cause chaos," he says. "I don't think there's anything police can do to stop this sort of thing."

Bandukwala, a physics professor in Gujarat, a western state torn by bloody communal riots in 2002, has long campaigned against religious extremism and for moderation and debate. While he sees progress, in part because of the rising middle class in India, Bandukwala says "on religious issues people get very quickly built up in this part of the world. If anybody wants to create a problem they just have to insult an iconic figure or plant a bomb and you see the results." In some ways, he says, "it's remarkable that India has evolved into a mature democracy after just 60 years."

Not just a mature democracy but a vibrant, fast-growing economy. The world has come to know a new India over the past few years, a place of outsourcing and hi-tech start-ups, of software engineers and steel barons. We expect such places to be shiny and secular and scientific, focused on technological breakthroughs and making money. We don't expect religious riots and communal clashes and bombings. In India, full of paradoxes and wonderful, frustrating inconsistencies, you have both: hi-tech business parks and age-old religious grudges; software savvy alongside sectarian brutality. Resolving those contradictions may well decide India's future.

 

[Adux]

Keyser,

Bull is suggesting two things, One Why are the pelting and rioting against the police, when they came there defuse the bomb; This is South India not Gujurat.The Chief of Police of that state is a muslim. He was talking about attitutde's of people. And I agree with him and compleltly stand by whatever he said.
Hindu's get the brunt of the attacks, all the year round from early 1990's; temples, markets, Hindu community center's etc etc; every month atleast 70-90 on an average dies, Bull was talking about response of our government then; Everybody over here knows about how WE view Gujurat, maybe you should hear the other side too. Muslims are not the only one's being terrorized..Just a suggestion.

 

[Bull]

And the worst was the police firing killed two more as protestors started burning shops and attacking policemen.

Bomb a temple, call for relegious harmony arises.
Bomb a train, call for candle light vigil arises.
Bomb a mosque, call to burn the shops and attack the police arises.

Atlast the detractors have found where to bomb to cause maximum unrest.

Unless you have some quotes from people calling for violence. I suggest you try flame baiting somewhere else. Keysersoze

Here's a little sign of the other side from Neo's article

"India's worst religious violence in recent years was in 2002, in the western Gujarat state. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslim, were killed by Hindu mobs in revenge attacks after a train fire killed 60 Hindus returning from a religious pilgrimage. Muslims were blamed for the train fire."


Wonder where the police were then?

Well that was the whole point. You still cry about the 3000 dead in Gujarat. Why? Onl;y because they were MUSLIMS!!! Even if a million hindus were killed, you wouldnt point a finger to point at that.

There were bomb blasts elsewhere in India, bigger one, more venemous, more casualities. A dozen died (?) in Varanasi temple atack, many more died in akshardam temple in the same gujarat,dozens were killed during diwali shopping in Delhi, '00s were killd in Mumbai train blast. Did you see rioting after the bombings?

What you saw after the bombings were people getting together irrespective of relegions to help out and fight the evil together. The cities were up and running in a few days, back to normal.

And now you have bomb blast outside a mosque and whole hell break lose. Mob pelts police with stones, burn shops, and was shot at while trying to burn a petrol pump. And it s Hyderbad bandh today, to protest against the bombing. Well they are knowingly or unknowingly palying into the very hands that planned the bombing. This is exactly what they wanted.

I have only seen rioting after bombing in one place. Guess where? Karachi!!!

And now may i say this too...Muslims are the easiest target. They are the most vulnerable. They are the most delicate and the most irresponsible.

 

[Wounded Healer]

@Bull
i agree with what u have said but instead of blaming the muslims why dont u try to find out the reason behind all the vulnerability and irresponsibility that the muslims have shown................Yes, muslims are easy targets and yes, muslims are vulnerable, but what can an ordinary muslim do against such great odds that have been stacked against him.............we muslims are a very emotional bunch, but what can u expect from a nation has been subjugated since the last 1000 years...............muslims feel that the whole world is against them, which is true to quite an extent..............and the only way to express our anger is to take to the street.............
i agree that we are playing ourselves right into the hands of our enemies but i wont blame an ordinary person for that..................if u wanna blame it on anyone, blame it on the whole world at large, which is responsible for creating such a mess in the first place..............

 

[IceCold]

This is wht the worlds leading democracy has to offer planting a bomb and killing innocent minorities and then wouldnt let them demonstrate ( wow india thumbs up for the so called democracy). This is not the 1st time muslims and their holy places have been trageted there are number of other incidents which included the killing of 1000s of muslims, It is for the muslims of india to think now abt their future in a country tht is based on the principles of killing minorities. Tht was the reason Pakistan came in existence coz leaders then realized tht hindus will never let muslims live in peace and the time is now for the muslims to think again abt their future in india.

 

[con]

This is wht the worlds leading democracy has to offer planting a bomb and killing innocent minorities and then wouldnt let them demonstrate ( wow india thumbs up for the so called democracy). This is not the 1st time muslims and their holy places have been trageted there are number of other incidents which included the killing of 1000s of muslims, It is for the muslims of india to think now abt their future in a country tht is based on the principles of killing minorities. Tht was the reason Pakistan came in existence coz leaders then realized tht hindus will never let muslims live in peace and the time is now for the muslims to think again abt their future in india.

Hmm the last time I heard Pakistan was not safe for Muslims either! Who was killing Muslims in Karachi recently? Hindus?

 

[Introvert]

Hmm the last time I heard Pakistan was not safe for Muslims either!

who did u hear it from?

 

[con]

who did u hear it from?

Well..I think I need to correct that. Rather I saw. Right in this forum. Bodies of some innocent Muslims lying around on the road in Karachi.

Unless you say that safety in Pakistan means what I saw!