NEW DELHI: Twelve persons were killed and 74 injured most of them seriously when a bomb exploded at Khayala village bus stop in West Delhi hospital and the police said.
The victims who were mostly people standing at a bus stop during the peak evening hours and those shopping because of the weekly Saturday market in the area were rushed to the nearby Deendayal Upadhayaya hospital.
While eight persons were brought dead to the hospital four succumbed to injuries later.
A senior police official said the toll was likely to rise as many of the injured were critical.
Delhi police immediately issued a red alert following bomb blasts on two consecutive days.
The blast is being described as the worst in the Capital and the first in a bush place like a weekly market. The toll is higher because of the heavy rush of the people in the market
Although police suspected that the blasts were the handiwork of militant organisations no one has claimed responsibility for the explosions.
This is the third incident of a bomb explosion in the Capital in less than a week and the eighth such incident in the city this year.
The two earlier bomb explosions in the Capital this week were in the busy Connaught Place area.
While four persons were injured in the blast at the popular Mohan Singh Place one persons was killed in the explosion at a fast food restaurant on March 18 also in the Connaught place area. The modus operandi of the blasts all these three places were similar.
The police suspect that plastic explosives have been used in the three blasts as investigations revealed no trace of traditional explosives.
Earlier on January 17 an explosion at Janpath in the Connaught Place area damaged property worth lakhs of rupees.
On January 22 one person was killed in a blast in the Tis Hazari lower courts parking lot. Another explosion the same day simultaneously nipped through the parking lot of Delhi police headquarters.
On January 25 another blast took place near the Jai Prakash Narayan hospital. However no casualties were reported in the incident.
On January 27 a powerful bomb shook the toilets of the Jubilee cinema in old Delhi killing one person.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 29, 1991
