At least 29 people were killed and more than 100 injured yesterday in a string of coordinated bomb attacks in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, officials said.
"The total recovery (of corpses) report that we have as of now is 29, and more than 100 people admitted (in hospitals)," an Ahmedabad police control room spokesman said.
Gujarat State Chief Minister Narendra Modi also told reporters that a total of 29 people had died and that 88 others including women and children had been injured in 16 separate blasts that occurred in the space of 36 minutes.
"The land of Mahatma Gandhi has been bloodied by terrorists whom we shall not spare," said Modi, a member of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Gujarat's federally-appointed Governor Navin Kishore Sharma however warned the toll was going up "every moment.”
”I wanted to know the details but the chief minister is not in a position to give me details because every moment someone is dying," he told the CNN-IBN television station.
"This is very unfortunate and we are surprised that despite a high security alert sounded yesterday after the bomb attacks in Bangalore, the blasts occurred today in Ahmedabad. We are shocked," India's Junior Home Minister Shakeel Ahmed told reporters yesterday.
"It seems there is a lack of coordination between (federal) intelligence agencies and people involved in the policing," the junior home minister said in New Delhi.
The blasts came a day after eight low-intensity bombs went off in the high-tech southern Indian city of Bangalore, leaving one dead and seven wounded.
Earlier, The Times Now news television network said at least 27 people were injured in the latest blasts and other television stations said the explosives were on bicycles and detonated with remote devices.
Ahmed declined to comment on reports that a little-known Islamic guerrilla group--the Indian Mujahedeen--had telephoned a television station and accepted responsibility for the latest attack.
"Such initial reports are coming from Ahmedabad but let this hour of crisis pass and then we will get a full report from officials on the ground," Ahmed said.
Ahmedabad police said the first explosion was reported around 6:00 pm (1230 GMT) on a bridge in Ahmedabad, a communally-sensitive city which saw bloody Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002.
"All the explosions occurred within a span of one hour and one of the bombs appeared to have been kept in a passenger bus," a police control room spokesman told AFP.
The official said the vehicle was damaged but could not give details of people injured in the attack.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meanwhile condemned the serial attack and urged Ahmedabad residents to remain calm, his office said in New Delhi.