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Four Bomb Blasts Injure 37 In Pakistan
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - At least 37 people were injured in four bomb explosions in Pakistan on Monday as the Christian minority celebrated Christmas and Muslims prepared for the Eid al-Fitr festival, police said.
A powerful bomb ripped through the crowded Delhi Gate market in Lahore, capital of central Punjab province, at 1:45 p.m. (0845 GMT).
Hundreds of people, including both Muslims and Christians, ran panicked through the market after the bomb, hidden under a vendor's cart, exploded, witnesses said.
About 30 minutes prior, another bomb exploded on a bus in Hyderabad, southern Sindh province, and injured six people, including four children, police said.
A third bomb of lower intensity exploded in an abandoned water tank close to the railway station in Faisalabad city, also in Punjab, slightly injuring one person, police said.
Another device exploded in the Punjabi garrison town of Kharian in a garbage dump in a residential neighborhood, causing no damage or casualties, local administration officials said.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for any of the explosions.
Punjab police chief Malik Asif Hayat pointed an accusing finger at India for the Lahore blast.
"We were anticipating some terrorist activities in Punjab, especially after the attack on the Red Fort in New Delhi," Hayat said, referring to Friday's raid on the historic fort by suspected Islamists.
The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba group, one of the main outfits fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir, has taken responsibility for the shock attack on the fort, which houses some 800 infantry troops.
A soldier and two civilians were killed in the attack, which triggered a security alert in the country.
"We are absolutely in no doubt that India is sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan," Hayat said.
The city police chief in Lahore, Javed Noor, described the market explosion as an act of terrorism.
"It is an act of terrorism aimed at causing widespread damages," he said, adding that several of the injured were in critical condition.
In Hyderabad, 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of the port city of Karachi, a bomb exploded on a bus near the railway station, city police chief Saud Mirza said.
"The explosion is aimed at spreading terror. It is premature to fix responsibility, but we have tightened security at key points," Mirza said.
Some 34 explosions have occurred in Pakistan this year, claiming more than 80 lives.
Many of the blasts, including one in a market in the Pakistani capital Islamabad in September that killed 16 people, have been blamed on the intelligence agency of rival neighbor India.
An Indian hand was also alleged to have been behind a deadly explosion in July in a train carriage in Hyderabad that killed nine people and injured 30 others.
Pakistan and India, locked in a bitter dispute over the Himalayan state of Kashmir, routinely accuse each other's intelligence agencies of sponsoring sabotage and subversion across their borders.
The 53-year old row over Kashmir, which is divided between the two countries, has caused two of the three wars between the neighbors since their independence in 1947.
The Punjab police chief said security had been further tightened ahead of the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which will take place in Pakistan later this week.
"We have increased police deployment at public places and also intensified patrolling in cities and towns across the province," he said.
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