Ten dead as blasts hit New Delhi

A co-ordinated series of explosions struck crowded shopping areas across the Indian capital today, killing at least 10 people and wounding at least 61, officials said.

A Muslim militant group claimed responsibility for the explosions.

A number of Indian media outlets received an email sent just before the blasts warning that India was about to receive “the Message of Death”.

“In the name of Allah, Indian Mujahedeen strikes back once more. ... Do whatever you can. Stop us if you can,” said the message.

Mayor Arti Mehra said as many as seven explosions went off, starting just before sundown.

Police Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal said at least 10 people had been killed.

“It’s a very cowardly act of violence,” Mehra told reporters near the scene of two of the explosions, in the M-Block market of the city’s Greater Kailash neighbourhood.

“They want to break the spirit of Delhi. They have tried this in other places before and they have not succeeded and they will not succeed here. They will not scare us.”

All of the bombs appeared to have gone off in, or very near, crowded shopping areas in various parts of the city.

An unexploded bomb was also recovered near India Gate, the central New Delhi colonial-era memorial that is one of the country’s best-known symbols, said Joint Commissioner of Police Ajay Kashyap, Press Trust of India news agency reported.

The Indian Mujahadeen was unknown before May, when it claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in the western city of Jaipur that killed 61 people.

The group also said it was responsible for July blasts in the western state of Gujarat that killed at least 45.

Two of the explosions in New Delhi occurred just 300 yards apart in Connaught Place, the city’s central shopping district.

The usually crowded streets quickly emptied of shoppers and filled with screaming police cars, fire engines and gawking crowds.

One bomb went off by a underground station entrance on a major road, and a police officer at the scene said it appeared to have been left inside a bin that had been ripped apart by the explosion.

In the minutes after the blast, the scene was filled with blood and chaos, as police officers raced to the scene and passers-by helped victims into taxis and rickshaws to get to hospitals.

A sadhu, a Hindu holy man clad in orange robes, lay face down in the gutter a few feet away, apparently dead.

Another man walked away from the scene, helped by other men, his face covered with blood.

A second blast in Connaught Place went off inside a park crowded with families and young people relaxing on the grass.

Raj Kumar, 30, a store clerk in the area, said he was nearby when he heard the explosion.

“Everyone was running every way,” he said. “They heard the bomb and they just started running.”