JAIPUR, India — The seven bombs that tore through this historic city ripped apart Sumana Khan’s life, killing her mother and two aunts and leaving the 4-year-old girl with a broken arm, a fractured leg and shrapnel in her back.
Lying in a crowded hospital Wednesday, Khan and the nearly 200 other wounded were in some ways among the lucky — they survived.
Eighty others became the latest deaths in a seemingly endless series of bombings that have terrorized Indian cities in recent years.
Most attacks, like Tuesday’s in Jaipur, have hit soft targets — crowded markets, packed temples, congested trains, mosques filled with worshipers. And with authorities repeatedly blaming Islamic militants for the bombings, each has brought fears of fresh violence between India’s Hindu majority and its sizable Muslim minority.
Soon after the attack, officials suggested that blame eventually would fall on Pakistan and the Islamic militant groups that India accuses its neighbor of backing.
Authorities moved quickly Wednesday to prevent any retaliatory bloodshed, imposing a curfew in Jaipur’s walled old city, where all the explosions took place, and deploying police in force.
The result was empty streets and shuttered stores in a city known for its pink-hued palaces and ornate jewelry. But by evening, the curfew was lifted, and people flocked onto the streets, buying groceries and going to prayer services.
When the bombs went off, Sumana Khan’s family was shopping in Jaipur.
“The entire family was wiped out,” said an inconsolable Liaqat Khan, Sumana’s grandfather, his body wracked with sobs as he was being driven home from a cemetery where his three daughters were buried Wednesday. Sumana didn’t even get to see her mother buried.
“Last night she kept asking for her mother, but we haven’t told her she is dead,” said Mohammed Iqbal, an uncle.
Police in Jaipur questioned nearly a dozen people without making any arrests. But they released a sketch of a man in his early 20s who was believed to have bought bicycles used in the attacks.
