Bomb blasts took place at the venue of Narendra Modi's Hunkar rally near Gandhi Maidan on Oct. 27, 2013 in Patna, India
Police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar on Monday arrested four suspects for allegedly exploding crude bombs at an opposition election rally in the state capital Patna on Sunday morning. The blasts killed six people and injured over 80.
Although no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, the Indian Mujahideen, a homegrown terror group, is suspected, Indian news channels reported on Monday.
The first of the eight blasts occurred in a toilet in the Patna railway station a little after 9 am; one person, later identified by police as a suspect, was severely injured. Later, seven other crude bombs went off near the site of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Hunkar (Battle Cry) Rally, — part of the 2014 prime ministerial campaign of controversial politician and Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi.
Politicians from across the board condemned the blasts, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who broke off his 17-year-old alliance with the BJP in August when the party chose Modi to lead its 2014 election campaign.
State BJP leaders criticized the Bihar government for “complete failure” and “criminal negligence.” Modi described the blasts on his Twitter feed as “deeply saddening and unfortunate.”
Sunday’s bomb attacks, a mere few months after the multiple blasts at the famous Buddhist Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, have caused security concerns in Bihar. Kumar claims there was no “intelligence input or alert either from the Centre or State agencies.”
Worryingly, reports in Indian newspapers said that even after the locations of the devices were known, police failed to clear the ground where more than 400,000 people had gathered to hear Modi speak.