(AFP) – Jul 26, 2008

AHMEDABAD, India (AFP) — At least 29 people were killed and over 100 wounded Saturday in a string of more than a dozen coordinated bomb attacks in the tinderbox western Indian city of Ahmedabad, officials said.

India television channels said as many as 30 people were killed, and reported that a little-known Islamist group calling itself the "Indian Mujahedeen" had claimed responsibility.

Ahmedabad is the communally-sensitive capital of the opposition Hindu nationalist-ruled state of Gujarat, where thousands were killed in Hindu attacks against Muslims in 2002.

The series of up to 17 bombings in the city, some of them targeting hospitals, came just a day after a similar wave of attacks in the southern technology city of Bangalore.

"Our information is that at least 15 people lost their lives and many, many others are injured," said Nipin Patel, Gujarat state's urban development minister.

Officials and medical staff put the number of injured at over 100, many of them hit by flying nuts, bolts and ball bearings packed into the bombs, which were clearly designed to cause maximum casualties.

The bombs were detonated with timer devices, federal experts said.

"We saw a blue bag near the trauma centre, and before we could react we saw it explode in a shine of blinding light, and some 40 people were hit by flying shrapnel," said doctor Vipul Patil at the privately-run Dhanwantari Hospital.

"We offered first-aid to relatives of patients, and patients, who were hit by shrapnel at our hospital," said the doctor at the hospital, one of four medical facilities reported to have been targeted.

Reporters at two hospitals saw victims with severe injuries lying on the floor, outnumbering harried paramedics and doctors.

In New Delhi, federal Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta said more than a dozen blasts rocked the bustling city, which is also one of India's wealthiest with booming diamond trading and textile manufacturing sectors.

"Between 13 and 14 blasts have taken place," said Gupta.

India had sounded a nationwide alert on Friday after a series of eight low-intensity bombs went off in IT capital Bangalore and left one dead and seven wounded.

"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 said in New Delhi.

"It seems there is a lack of coordination between (federal) intelligence agencies and people involved in the policing," he said.

Ahmedabad police said the first explosion was reported at around 6:00 pm (1230 GMT) on a bridge in the city.

"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 said.

Two of the blasts occurred in Ahmedabad's Maninagar residential district, the constituency of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi, a member of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is a highly controversial figure in India -- accused of turning a blind eye to the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots which left 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.

An Indian security expert and former head of the country's foreign intelligence service, B. Raman, said he feared a communal backlash in the city, where tensions from the 2002 violence still linger.

"Hospitals are targeted to maximise public anger and this is serious," he said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the serial attacks, and urged Ahmedabad residents to remain calm, his office said in New Delhi.

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