Militants blamed for series of courthouse bombs that kill 13

A SERIES of explosions ripped through courthouse complexes yesterday in three north Indian cities, Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad, killing at least 13 lawyers and injuring dozens of other people.

Federal authorities blamed militants trying to spark unrest between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority, though a legal group noted the blasts came in a state where lawyers had decided earlier this year not to defend terrorist suspects.

At least seven lawyers were killed in three explosions in Varanasi, one of Hinduism’s holiest cities, said Brij Lal, a top official in Uttar Pradesh state, where all three cities are located.

At least two of those bombs were attached to bicycles, police said.

In Faizabad, a pair of bombs killed three lawyers and injured 10 to 12 more, said Mr Lal.

One of the bombs was rigged to a motorcycle, said RN Singh, a local police officer. Faizabad is near the town of Ayodhya, where Hindu extremists destroyed the 16th century Babri Mosque in 1992, sparking widespread Hindu-Muslim riots.

There were no confirmed deaths in Lucknow, the state capital.

The blasts went off less than 15 minutes apart inside court complexes, though not in courtrooms, said Vipin Mishra, spokesman for the Home Ministry of Uttar Pradesh state.

Indian court complexes are crowded, chaotic places, with lawyers often setting up small outdoor “offices” in makeshift, open-walled shacks built in courtyards.

“It’s a conspiracy... This is the handiwork of some group that wants to disturb communal harmony in the country,” the junior federal home minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, told reporters.

A series of terrorist bombings have ripped across India in the past two years.

In August, a pair of explosions killed 43 people in the southern city of Hyderabad. In July 2006, bombs in seven Mumbai commuter trains killed more than 200 people.