AHMADABAD, India — An obscure Islamic militant group warning of “the terror of Death” claimed responsibility for bombings that killed at least 45 people, and authorities stepped up security Sunday after India’s second series of blasts in two days.
The city police commissioner, O.P. Mathur, said 30 people had been detained for questioning, but there was scant information about the Indian Mujahideen, the little known group that took credit for the bombings in western India.
“In the name of Allah the Indian Mujahideen strike again! Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!” said an e-mail from the group sent to several Indian television stations minutes before the blasts began.
The e-mail’s subject line said “Await 5 minutes for the revenge of Gujarat,” an apparent reference to 2002 riots in the western state that left 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. The historic city of Ahmadabad was the scene of much of the 2002 violence.
Saturday’s e-mail, sent from a Yahoo account and written in English, was made available to AP by CNN-IBN, a TV station that received the warning.
State government spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas said 45 people were killed and 161 wounded when at least 16 bombs went off Saturday evening in several crowded neighborhoods.
The attack came a day after seven smaller blasts killed two people in the southern technology hub of Bangalore.
Investigators in Surat, about 160 miles south of Ahmadabad, found a car carrying detonators and a liquid that police suspect may be ammonium nitrate, often used in explosive devices, city police Chief R.M.S. Brar told reporters.
The Saturday bombs went off in two separate spates. The first, near a busy market, left some of the dead sprawled beside stands piled high with fruit, next to twisted bicycles. The second group of blasts went off near a hospital.
India has been hit repeatedly by bombings in recent years. Nearly all of them have been blamed on Islamic militants who allegedly want to provoke violence between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority.
