Grenade blast kills four at Indian temple

A grenade explosion and a subsequent stampede during a Hindu festival in north-eastern India left four people dead and 40 injured, including at least four foreigners.

The explosion occurred at a temple in Imphal, the capital of Manipur state, while devotees were celebrating the birthday of Hindu god Krishna, police said.

At the time of the blast there were nearly 8,000 people, including several foreign visitors, at the temple that belongs to the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, said Radheshyam Singh, a local police officer.

Singh said more people were injured in the stampede than in the blast itself.

The injured included two Americans, one Swede and one Iranian, Singh said.

The condition of Brian Nash, one of the injured Americans in hospital at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal, was serious, he said.

The attack occurred despite tight police and paramilitary security in and around the temple where hundreds of Hindus congregated for the festival.

No one claimed responsibility for the blast.

ISKCON spokesman Colonel SD Goswami said the attackers escaped after detonating the grenade.

Dozens of insurgencies have festered for years across India’s seven north-eastern states, of which Manipur is one. Nearly all are fighting for autonomy or independent homelands for the region’s indigenous peoples, most of them ethnically closer to Burma and China than to the rest of India.

The militants say the central government in New Delhi, 1,000 miles to the west, exploits the north-east’s rich natural resources while doing little to improve its poor infrastructure and alleviate widespread unemployment.

Rights activists said they were surprised by the attack on the Hare Krishna temple, because militants in the region have never targeted religious places.