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A sad day for Jaipur – India
From the BBC
From the BBC
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Pattern to India bombs say papers
Newspaper headlines on the blasts in Jaipur on May 14 2008
The blasts made front page headlines
Tuesday’s series of blasts in the western Indian city of Jaipur have dominated the front pages of India’s newspapers. The papers say the explosions appear to be the result of a planned operation and followed a pattern of recent similar attacks.
“And Now, It’s Jaipur” says The Times Of India.
The newspaper says the explosions were the “21st terror attack” outside Indian-administered Kashmir in the past three years.
It says Tuesday evening’s blast bore “close resemblance” to similar explosions in a temple in the holy city of Varanasi, the train bombings in the western city of Mumbai and the suburbs of Malegaon in western India over the past two years.
The paper quotes unnamed sources saying the blasts “pointed to a sophisticated operation that only foreign-trained groups are capable of executing”.
The newspaper also says that the blasts, which happened in “affluent and predominantly Hindu areas” were aimed at “fuelling” tension between communities.
“Death and fear in Jaipur” says The Indian Express
The paper says the blasts came on the 10th anniversary of India’s nuclear tests that were held in the Rajasthan state.
‘Main target’
“[Hindu] temples seemed to be the main target,” the paper says.
The newspaper says there was no alert by security agencies on a possible terrorist attack in Rajasthan and the strikes took the state and federal governments “by surprise”.
The paper says that “internal security agencies have picked up no cross-border communication or intercept in Kashmir and the linkage to terrorists operating in the [Kashmir] valley is being ruled out at present”.
“Terror Strikes Pink City”, is the headline in the Hindustan Times
A man injured in the blasts in Jaipur on May 14 2008
Doctors traced relatives of dead patients from their mobile phones
The paper quotes eyewitnesses saying that the old city of Jaipur was targeted because they were inhabited by Hindus and Muslims.
“Since both communities were targeted, it is clearly an attack on India,” they told the newspaper.
It also quotes a senior police officer in Indian-administered Kashmir as saying: “The roots of all these acts of terror are in Pakistan.”
“Pink City Turns Red” says The Pioneer.
The paper says that although the police “suspected the hand” of a Bangladesh-based group behind the attack, “it is yet to find any link between the blasts and this outfit”.
The Hindu reports that the doctors at one of the hospitals in Jaipur where the dead and the injured were taken after the blast used the mobile phones of the dead to convey the news to their relatives.
“Of the 20 bodies brought to the hospital, the mobiles on the three started ringing… The doctors, who had declared them dead, had to pass on the news to their relatives on the mobiles of the victims.”
“Bloodbath In Pink City” is the headline in the Mail Today.
The paper reports that many Jaipur-bound foreign tourists had cancelled their travel plans after the explosions.
Tuesday’s blasts, the paper says, “may not be the best advertisement” for a state which attracted 1.4 million foreigners last year.
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