At least seven people were injured in twin blasts at the Jama Masjid mosque in the Indian capital of New Delhi, following terrorist attacks earlier in the day that killed five people in Kashmir.
The 350-year-old, Mughal-built Jama Masjid mosque is located in the crowded Muslim-dominated older part of the national capital and is one of India's largest mosques.
The explosions took place in the typical terrorist fashion..two blasts 15 minutes apart. The blasts took place after the afternoon's Friday prayers, when the area immediately outside the mosque is full of evening shoppers.Prayers resumed at the mosque after the police bomb disposal squad completed its search of the site.
Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the shahi imam of the Jama Masjid, appealed for calm.
"There are people who want to create hatred between Hindus and Muslims just like in Varanasi. We will fight them. We will not allow them to be successful," he said.
This attack comes little over a month after attacks on religious sites in India, including the twin blasts in the Hindu temple city of Varanasi on March 7. Twenty people died and many were injured.
I think the Imam is exactly correct. My basic take on this is that Muslim terrorists may have been responsible, because of the relatively lessened nature of the explosions.
Had it been a tit-for-tat retaliation by Hindus, I think the explosives used would have been much more powerful. And to be honest, there has not been a case in India of Hindus blowing up a mosque that I'm aware of.
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In Kashmir today, five people were killed and 15 injured in a series of bomb blasts. The AFP also reported five separate grenade attacks that targeted security forces in Srinagar, wounding four policemen.
The Islamic terorrist groups Jamiat-ul-Mujahedin and Al-Mansoorain claimed responsibility for three of the attacks.
The attacks seem to have been timed to take place before by-elections to four seats in the state legislature on April 24.
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